Tuesday, April 10 - Hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Hello from Australia. We left New Zealand over a week ago. Since then we have been in Australia snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, hugging koalas in Brisbane, and now visiting our friend from grad school, Sebastian, and his partner Justine, in Adelaide. I apologize for the delay in this posting. Our last few weeks in NZ were pretty busy and since we arrived in Australia we have been living in hotels and have not had unfettered access to the internet. Plus, we had a fantastic day doing the Crossing, so I wanted to do the day justice by not rushing through a posting.

Our guidebook describes the Tongariro Alpine Crossing as the “best one day hike in New Zealand.” Not having done every day-hike in NZ, we can’t say whether this is true, but it is spectacular and we would recommend it to any physically fit visitor to New Zealand.

The track for the Crossing is 19.4 kilometres long and takes you between Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe in Tongariro National Park. There is a third mountain in the park, Mt. Ruapehu. All of these mountains are dormant or resting volcanoes (Ruapehu last erupted in 2007). It is this volcanic activity, along with the surrounding vistas, that makes the Crossing so interesting. Most of the day you hike through and up fields of volcanic rocks. The last few kilometers of the hike are a complete contrast as they take you through the thick, green Ketetahi podocarp forest.

We began our hike at 8:30 a.m. Weather-wise it promised to be a perfect day. The sun was up and shining and there was little wind. This was a real bonus because apparently the Crossing is often cloudy/foggy and all the vistas are blocked from sight. We were there to see the landscape and not simply to say we had conquered the Crossing (I can think of better ways to get 7 hours of exercise), so our day got off to a great start.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing early in the morning

For the first hour and a half we walked from the Mangatepopo car park to Soda Springs. This part of the Crossing is pretty flat and most of your walk is on a boardwalk—the trail runs beside and over a small, intermittent stream. Like other walks we did in NZ, the boardwalk took away from the naturalness and ruggedness of the Crossing. However, on some days there can be over 1,000 people doing the Crossing, so without the boardwalk this part of the trail, and park, would become very eroded.

The Kidd Family visits Mt. Doom

The landscape on this part of the walk is dominated by Mt. Ngauruhoe, which is to the right of the trail up to Soda Springs. Mt. Ngauruhoe is the volcano you made for one of your science fair projects. It is perfectly conical and has a single vent at the top. Because of its perfect “volcanoness”, Mt. Ngauruhoe became Mount Doom in the filming of The Lord of the Rings. For those of you who don’t know or have forgotten, throughout the books and movies, Frodo and Sam, hobbits, are on a quest to throw a magical ring into Mount Doom where the ring was originally forged by the evil Sauron. This will melt the ring and destroy Sauron. We were told that since the filming of the movie, people now hike to the top of Mt. Ngauruhoe and throw their own rings into the volcano. (I said to Karen that would certainly make it clear your marriage is over). We didn’t do the side-trip to the top of Mt. Ngauruhoe as it requires a 500 metre ascent and adds around 2.5 hours to your day. One final note about Mount Doom. The motel we stayed at had a DVD of the third part of The Lord of the Rings in which Mount Doom is featured a lot. To get us more in the mood, we watched it the night before our hike.

It is once we reached Soda Springs that our real hike began. From Soda Springs we walked up a steep 350 metre ascent to the South Crater, which took us about 45 minutes. There are some stairs on this part of the Crossing, but for the most part the trail is pretty rugged. It was a stiff walk up, but Marshall did well on it. It became much easier about three quarters of the way up after his mind became occupied with his eating of a really dense chocolate and peanut bar. What I found interesting was how we leapfrogged other groups going up the climb, and throughout the whole Crossing for that matter. We would stop and take a rest or photo break and they would pass us, then they would stop and we would pass them.

Looking back from the top of the Devil's staircase 

Fortunately, the climb up was well worth the effort. Once we reached the top of the Devil’s Staircase, we walked across the South Crater and then up to the Red Crater. I really liked the walks through the South and Central Crater. They are both wide, flat areas of seeming moonscape—very unique. What is nice about the South Crater is that it lies between Mt. Tongariro, to your left, and Mt. Ngauruhoe, to your right and behind you. This is one of the best vantage points from which to take pictures of both mountains. 

We reach the Tongariro Crossing Summit
and the Red Crater 

After the South Crater we did another steep, 250 metre ascent up to the Red Crater, which is the highest point of the Crossing (1900 metres above sea level). We were told the Devil’s Staircase was the hardest part of the Crossing, but as a group, we found this ascent the most difficult. The trail here was very rugged, winding its way through and over rocks and boulders.

The Red Crater is part of Mt. Tongariro, which is a multi-vent volcano. Marshall found it very interesting. He particularly liked the brilliant shades of red in the crater. Looking at makes it clear you are in volcano country. It is also a great vantage point from which to take photos. Standing up there also made us doubly glad for the great weather. At this point in the Crossing a decent wind was blowing even though it had been calm at the base of the Crossing. Because you start to sweat doing the ascent, it is easy to become chilled with the wind blowing over you. Doing it wearing a rain jacket would not be fun.

From the Red Crater we slid down about 150 metres to the Emerald Lakes and the Central Crater. For many people, the walk down from the Red Crater to the Emerald Lakes is the worst part of the Crossing. It is a very steep scree slope which in places feels like you are walking on marbles. The trick is to lean back and dig in with your heels, not your toes, and let gravity do the work. We conquered this part of the walk with no troubles, but we saw a lot of people wiping out on their way down.

Once we reached the Emerald Lakes we stopped for awhile, ate our lunch, and explored. Visually, I think this is the most interesting part of the Crossing, with the bright green of the lakes contrasting with the grays, browns, and blacks of the surrounding humps and bumps. At this point of the Crossing we were still on schedule to meet our shuttle at 4:30, so we spent around 45 minutes at the Emerald Lakes.

An Emerald Lake along the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Tongariro Central Crater

After the Emerald Lakes, we crossed the Central Crater and did a short ascent up to Blue Lake. At Blue Lake we got a spectacular view of Lake Taupo to the northeast. Lake Taupo is NZ’s largest lake. It sits in the caldera (bowl) of an older, massive volcano (Tongariro National Park and its three volcanoes would fit inside the caldera). From Blue Lake we began our long descent (1000 metres over 9 kilometres) to the Ketehahi Car Park where our shuttle van was to be waiting for us.

The landscape on this side of the Crossing is much greener, with a lot of grasses and small shrubs. I am not sure why this is—the soil didn’t look much better than the other side, perhaps this side of the park gets more rain or it wasn’t affected by recent eruptions.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing - the descent

Being honest, after the first half of the Crossing, I found this part sort-of disappointing. The scenery is nice but it doesn’t feel unique. Walking through a lush podocarp forest, after the barrenness of the rest of the Crossing, is a neat way to end the hike, but by the time you reach it your mind is focused more on the destination (finishing the hike) vs. enjoying the journey. Also, being all down hill, the walk itself is no longer challenging. If I was to do the Crossing again, I would walk to Blue Lake, do a side trip to either the summit of Mt. Tongariro or Mt. Ngauruhoe, and walk back to Mangatepopo.

Looking at and out over Blue Lake

At around kilometre 14, Marshall began to really slow down and a lot of groups began to pass us. Then we got to a little sitting area at kilometre 16 where we took a break for a minute. It was here that Marshall realized we didn’t have much further to go and thought we could catch a shuttle at 3:15 (we didn’t) rather than the one at 4-4:15. Next thing, he is running down the trail and jumping off all the stairs. Karen didn’t think this was a fun way to end a peaceful day, so she let us race off ahead. Now he and I started passing many of the groups that passed us around kilometers 14 and 15. He and I did the last three kilometers in about 35 minutes. In total it took us a little under 7.5 hours to do the Crossing.

We reach the end

What can I say other than we had an exhilarating day. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing was the last big “want to do” thing for our time in New Zealand and we were all happy not to have missed out on it. We even got the t-shirts to say we were there.

A few final notes about our trip to Tongariro. We stayed two nights at the Adventure Lodge and Motel in the aptly named town of National Park, which offered a really good Tongariro Crossing package. While not the fanciest place, the rooms were clean, the food was excellent, and the owners were very knowledgeable, helpful and accommodating. At the motel we met Stuart and Pat who live on Darlings Island (Hampton, NB), which is about 15 minutes from our home in Quispamsis. They had been touring the South Island of NZ and before going back to Auckland to fly home, had stopped to do the Tongariro Crossing. They were really nice and it was fun talking to them about their trip and their impressions of New Zealand.