Tongariro Alpine Crossing


This post was published on Tuesday 8 January 2019.

Our day began at 6am with an actual alarm, to make sure we woke up on time.  We’d packed our bags the night before, so didn’t need to do much before heading off to the shuttle collection point.

It was easy to find, there was a helpful lady who checked us in, we put our boots on, and walked to the collection point.  The shuttle left on time, and deposited us at the start point at 8am, ready to start the walk.  Frankly we couldn’t ask for anything more, so I think the reviews were a little unfair, or not really representative of the general experience.

Even at 8am we could feel the heat of the sun, but it wasn’t too bad.  There were a few clouds in the sky but nothing too bad.

The first part of the walk was pretty easy, with only a gradual incline, so we zoomed through the first 3-4km.  Here’s a taster of that section, and the first view of Mt Ngauruhoe (otherwise known as Mt Doom in The Return of the King)...

After that it started to get a little more difficult.  The initial climb is so steep the path was a series of steps, which were a killer on the thighs... hence the warnings I guess!

Here we are, an hour and a half into the walk, halfway up the steps, pausing for a drink and a protein bar...

I couldn’t get enough of Mt Doom, particularly the Mordor-ish views of it...

After the main run of steps comes the South Crater, which is long and flat, and a welcome relief from climbing, and which actually wasn’t caused by a volcanic eruption.  Here you can see it as we walked across it and then climbed up to the highest point of the walk:

The climb up to the Red Crater was pretty tough, because not only was it steep, but the rocks are so small and fine it’s almost like walking up sand.  We slipped several times making it up there – and then didn’t see Red Crater at all, because the cloud descended so quickly... here’s our view of it...!

Going up and down this peak is one of the most dangerous parts of the walk, because it is a completely exposed and narrow walkway of sandy shale rock.  In high winds walkers have to go up and down on their hands and knees.  We slipped and slided down the other side – I loved it, but Jess was properly scared of it, and got quite upset by the time we got down to the three lakes.  It was pretty dangerous, and there were no ropes or anything to stop someone sliding off the edge and down into the crater (it was a very long way down).

The view of the lakes on the descent was beautiful though...

Once down, we stopped for lunch by the main emerald lake.  As it was lunchtime, a lot of people did the same thing.  It was so tranquil there, shielded from the wind, and the cloud lifted a little so we even saw some blue skies. It was pretty cold though!

After the Emerald Lakes was another, much larger lake, imaginatively called the Blue Lake...

The next section of the walk gave us our only view of Red Crater – which I imagine would be pretty spectacular from the high point of the walk, if not covered in cloud.  This is going to be another of my favourite pictures of the trip I suspect...

Mt Ngauruhoe and the Red Crater

That picture also gives a flavour of how many people were on the walk – there was barely a moment where we couldn’t see anyone either behind or in front of us.  But actually that was ok, it didn’t feel crowded really.

As we looked back at Ngauruhoe, we could see the lava field – it looked almost as if it were still moving.

Spot the path snaking across the mountain...

The walk down the other side was, to be honest, nothing special.  It was a fairly long and interminable downward slope, with dozens and dozens of steps.  My knees were starting to hurt, so I had to take painkillers.  It was also past midday by this point, so the sun was at its zenith and the temperature was hotting up.  The trees provided a little shade from the mugginess.

One of the warnings you are given before attempting the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is to take all the water you’ll need, because a) the water up there isn’t fresh, it’s volcanic and contains a high concentration of poisonous heavy metals, and b) it is a sacred site for the Maori people, so out of respect the water should be untouched.  However, I’m not sure anyone would be tempted to touch or drink the water in this particular stream...

The water was almost black – presumably with volcanic rock dust.

Also on the way down we encountered something we’d not heard of before – warnings about a ‘Lahar Hazard Zone’.  Wikipedia describes them like as

a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley.  Lahars are extremely destructive: they can flow tens of metres per second (22 mph or more), they have been known to be up to 140 metres (460 ft) deep, and large flows tend to destroy any structures in their path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahar

The warning said something like, ‘move through the next area quickly, don’t stop, and if you hear a loud noise coming downstream, don’t go any further’!  We followed the instructions, wondering what we were moving quickly to avoid...

All was going well until the last kilometre of the walk...