Crossing Tongariro on Waitangi (Feb. 6)

As we noted yesterday, we decided to do the Tongariro Crossing today, Waitangi Day. Waitangi Day is a national holiday in NZ, so what better way to do celebrate than by doing a quintessential NZ hike? We woke at 5:15 AM to catch our 6:00 shuttle to the park, and were on the trail by 6:45. There were very few other hikers on the trail at that time, which was great, as it felt like we had the place to ourselves for much of our hike. We must have had the favor of the weather gods, as the weather couldn’t have been better for our hike. Oftentimes the Crossing is covered by clouds early in the morning, but our entire day was clear and sunny: perfect for hiking.

As for the Crossing, the first half of the hike is terrific, with a few short but steep ascents, walks across volcanic craters, brightly colored lakes, and other cool geological features I’ve never seen before. One of the optional summits from the Crossing is Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings, a pretty steep and difficult hike (lots of loose rock), and one we skipped, which we later came to regret.

Highlights of the trip for us were the Emerald Lakes, Red Crater, and just walking through the South Crater, as it’s absolutely barren, full of volcanic rock and sand, and feels more like a moonscape than most places on Earth. The second half of the hike, a long, gradual descent through a mountain pass and then through a forest, is much less exciting, and really doesn’t link to the more spectacular part of the Crossing very well. It’s not a bad hike, per se, but is a bit anticlimactic after hiking through volcanic craters.

The Tongariro Crossing is 17km (~10.4mi), and most guides say it takes about 8 hours to cross. However, as we started to pass other hikers up the first steep area of the trail, we started to have doubts it would take that long. By the time we reached the Emerald Lakes, we knew we’d be done much more quickly. Normally that isn’t a problem, but as the earliest shuttle wouldn’t arrive until 3 PM, we tried to stop and enjoy the views as much as possible. Even dawdling immensely by our standards, we still got back to the carpark by 1 PM, where we sat and sunned with a ton of other hikers awaiting their buses. Happily, that was the most people we saw all day.

So far, Tongariro probably rates as the most spectacular thing we’ve seen in the North Island. Cape Reinga was nice, but getting out to do a hike, especially when you’re nearly alone in the park, is great, and the scenery was absolutely unearthly. In hindsight, we wished we’d tried to do Mt. Doom, but maybe we’ll just have to visit on our way back up the North Island later this year… In sum, if you’re fit and on the North Island, go cross the Tongariro!