January 9

Mangatepopo Hut to Ketetahi Hut, Climb Ngauruhoe

I got up at 6 AM when people started stirring about. I could see that there was an orange glow in the sky. The sun was just starting to rise over the slopes of Ngauruhoe to the east, and I hurried outside to take some pictures. The sky was mostly clear this morning.

I had breakfast, and started walking at 7:45. The track was flat until it started the climb to the pass, actually a big volcanic crater rim. Before starting the climb, I made a quick detour to Soda Springs, a small waterfall. The climb was steep, over big black volcanic rocks. Jagged boulders were everywhere, and little vegetation except a bit of grass.

A side trail went up Mt. Ngauruhoe, and a sign said it was a two hour climb. Already, at 9:30, clouds were sitting on top, and more were on their way. Several people had started up, and I decided to climb in spite of the clouds. It was a steep climb, marked by poles, up loose volcanic rock, which was hard to get good footing in. Much of the climb followed a rocky ridge. At one point along the way, it started raining lightly, and it was becoming so cloudy that I stopped a while under a ledge to consider whether to continue.

Clouds blew up from the west and over Mt. Tongariro, whose wide craters stretched out below the cone of Ngauruhoe. The desolate landscape below looked like the craters of the moon, only cloudier. Occasionally the view would be completely obscured. A couple more people came up while I was watching the weather, and I decided to go on. Beyond the ridge, the climb followed loose red rock steeply toward the summit. The poles were gone now. The rock was looser toward the top, and progress was slow. I passed a snow field and began the final steep climb to the summit.

At the top, I found just a thin rim, with a steep drop on the other side. There was no visibility at first, because I was in a cloud, but I could hear other people. Then the clouds broke briefly, and I could see that I was on the edge of a deep volcanic crater. I walked around to the lowest part of the rim, where there was a relatively gentle slope into the crater. You were not supposed to go down into it, because of the noxious gasses which could be seen venting around the crater. I went down a little way, and felt the heat coming out of some vents. A couple more people arrived, and went all the way to the bottom, where there was some ice. They said they had done it before. I went down a little further, but not all the way.

Visibility was mostly good into the crater, but not away from the mountain. There were only fleeting views as breaks in the clouds passed by. When there was some visibility, the surroundings seemed a long way down, and the cone very steep. It was hard to believe I had climbed that. I saw a lake far below, probably one of the Tama lakes to the south. There were also brief views of Tongariro's moon-like craters.

I stayed on top a couple hours, and walked all the way around the rim, hoping for improving weather. I noticed that this crater was actually the higher, inner crater of the volcano, and that a wider on surrounded it on the south-eastern side. The weather only got worse, and the mountain clouded up completely again, as it was when I first reached the summit.

I started down soon after the visibility disappeared, following the path I took up, mostly. It could have been hard to follow the path if it got too cloudy. I heard thunder, and was glad I started down then. Some people were still coming up. I sat down and took some pictures while a couple people climbed the loose red rock, so I wouldn't dislodge rock on them while they came up. There was still a decent view from a short way below the summit, and I could see how steep the route down would be. It hadn't seemed that steep on the way up.

Some rain started, intermittently. As I started climbing down the rocky ridge, the rain became more intense, and it started to hail. I was glad I had my rain suit. I passed a family with children, who were still climbing up. I told them that they had at least 45 minutes to go, and that it got harder, but they continued anyway.

When I got down to my pack, at 3:30, it was still raining. I had a sandwich and went on, crossing the wide, flat South Crater of Mt. Tongariro, and then climbing the crater rim on the other side. There was almost no vegetation here, and the rock was slippery in the rain. The trail climbed to the main ridge of Mt. Tongariro, in the middle of several wide, flat craters. A side trail led to the summit in an hour. This was not nearly as high as Ngauruhoe, and there didn't seem to be much point of going out there in the rain. Maybe I would come back tomorrow. Some people told me there were some nice rock formations out there, but there were nice rock formations everywhere.

The trail climbed onto a high ridge next to Red Crater, a stark but beautiful red and black crater, classified as active, with lots of hot gasses coming out. The smell was quite acrid, and I could feel the heat when a cloud of gas blew by. I didn't take any pictures of the crater yet, because of the rain. If it were nice tomorrow, I would backtrack a little to see it again.

The track then descended steeply through loose, black volcanic soil toward the Emerald Lakes, which were very beautiful, in a harsh volcanic way. Steam rose from the ground all around, and sulfur stained the slopes. The ground here was hot to the touch. The rain on the hot ground added to the steam, making it look like hell.

The view was truly impressive on the way down to the Emerald Lakes, and I took many pictures in spite of the rain. The part of the track that I was walking today is also a popular day hike, known as the Tongariro Crossing, said to be the best one-day walk in New Zealand. This section is the most scenic part of the Crossing.

The track then crossed the wide, flat, muddy central crater of Tongariro, and climbed the far rim, giving a view of the big, round Blue Lake on the other side. Then the track left the volcano, and descended gently. The rain stopped, and a big lake, Lake Rotoaira, became visible below, far away. Looking back, I could see the steaming slopes around the Tongariro's Red Crater, with Ngauruhoe towering above in the distance. The trail wound down wide, gentle switchbacks to Ketetahi Lodge, which had a big porch in back overlooking the valley and lake beyond.

A hot spring was letting off immense clouds of steam nearby. It was the Ketetahi Hot Spring, on a little island of private property, where people are not supposed to go. I was arriving at the lodge rather late, and many people had already been to the hot spring. I brought a towel and water shorts and went down to check out the spring myself.

The track passes near the spring, and there are a couple of places to view it without passing the "no trespassing" signs. I saw someone in a bright yellow raincoat wondering around well beyond those signs, in an area marked "dangerous", due to the unstable ground, through which some people had fallen at times and been severely burned. The water comes out of the springs at boiling temperature, but gradually cools as it flows downstream.

I walked downstream of the dangerous area, put on my water shorts, and tried the water. The spot I picked was just comfortably hot. I sat in the murky, grey water in one of the deeper pools (about knee deep) for a while. I had read that hot springs in New Zealand can have a kind of brain-eating amoeba, so I was careful not to put my head in the water, which had a powerful sulfur odor.

Around 8:00, I got dressed, just as a teenage girl arrived on the track downstream from the springs. She was on her way to the hut, and stopped to wait for some others. I went back to the hut and fixed dinner. At dusk, a group of eight teenagers and a guide, including the girl I had seen, arrived at the hut. It was an adventure outing. They had rafted in the morning, bicycled in the afternoon, and walked up tonight. Tomorrow, they would climb Ngauruhoe.

The teenagers started cooking dinner about the time most people were going to bed. They were noisy and annoying, and had to be constantly reminded to keep quiet. Ketetahi hut is said to get a lot of school groups during the December holidays, with as many as forty people in a hut that holds around twenty, without much floor space.

Copyright Scott A. Yost, 1996. All rights reserved.