Magnificent Mt Ruapehu

Wow.  What a trip!  While Mel and the kids are away, it's become my tradition to get away to a mountain somewhere for a bit of a walk. The first year it was just Mt Pirongia, the second was Fantham's Peak on Mt Taranaki, and thoroughly miserable weather last year meant that it was "just" Mt Pirongia again.

On the edge of the plateau

This year I had four weekends to choose from, so decided to be adventurous and plan a trip down to Tongariro National Park, with the aim to get up onto Mt Ruapehu for a night, hoping that one of the four weekends would be perfect weather-wise.  At 2797m, it's the North Island's highest peak, although there's actually about half a dozen different peaks above 2700m that are part of the huge bulk of the mountain.  It's also an active volcano, although it hasn't had a major eruption since 1996 - only "little" ones.

Tents in the snow!

Access to the mountain is nice and easy because there's a huge skifield at the base.  We caught the chairlift up as high as you can go (around 2000m altitude) before putting the crampons on and starting the steep climb up towards the summit plateau.  Conditions were perfect - sunshine, a breath of wind and firm (but not too icy) snow underfoot.  It's a fairly long trudge up, with the views getting better and better, although you don't get to see much different.  Once we got to the rim of the summit plateau though, we got to peer across the vast bowl that is the plateau - ringed by the Te Heu Heu ridge, Cathedral Rocks, Dome and Glacier Knob - an absolutely magnificent sight.  By this time we didn't really have time to dig a snow cave (which had been one plan), so we found a hollow that some previous group had dug in the lee of Cathedral Rocks to pitch our tents.  It needed a bit of enlarging to fit the two tents, but the snow wasn't too hard, so that didn't take too long to do.  Once that was done, it was time to get dinner started and get set up for the night - it was decidedly chilly up there and wasn't going to get any warmer once the sun went down!  By the time the sun did go down, the wind was gusting (probably only 30-40km/hr gusts), but with the temperature down around -10C, it was very cold indeed.  Dinner ended up being served in the tents - for some reason nobody felt like sitting outside to eat!

The summit plateau at sunset

Click to see a slightly bigger version!

The night was spent snuggling deep inside a sleeping bag, trying to stay warm, as well as get some sleep with the tent flapping a bit each time the wind blew.  Every gust of wind also brought a gentle sprinkling of snow inside the tent (no, my tent's not really intended to be a mountain tent!).  By the morning, water bottles that were inside the tent right next to sleeping bags were frozen solid, so it must have been cold!
We managed to get a reasonable sleep considering the conditions, and I got up around 6am to get some photos of the dawn.  I intended to just walk around on the plateau taking some photos, but the lure of a view of the crater lake at dawn proved too much, and I ended up sidling up the side of Dome, trying to get a good view.  I managed to get a fantastic view, but then also realised just how icy the slope was - and I hadn't put the crampons on!  Silly boy.  Anyway, I managed to get down safely enough and back to the tent where everyone else was still in their tents.  Not sure why - it was only about -15C.

Fun on top of Dome!

Once I'd made some porridge for breakfast, we all headed up for the top of Dome, where there's an emergency shelter (it's primary purpose is to house seismic monitoring equipment, not shelter) and the best views of the crater lake.  We enjoyed the magnificent view up there before heading back to the tent to get all packed up and ready for the walk down.  The walk down was relatively straightforward, other than getting very hot with the sun in our faces!  We were down shortly after lunch time, and that was that.
There's a full set of photos at flickr, as usual!