WOW, What a weekend it's turned out to be. Kit, Sara, Kelly & me climbed Mt. Ruapehu - the highest mountain on North Island - all 2797 meters of it. Oh and it's an active volcano. :-)
It might be easier to recount the experiences if I break them down into days since it was quite an experience.
And a quick note - All photos are enlargeable by clicking on them.
Day-1 {Friday} THE WAIT
Friday turned out to be the agonizing waiting day. The plan was to leave Auckland around 12.30PM, so as to reach Ohakune by 5.30-6.00 in the evening and have an early night's sleep as we planned on starting the climb of Mt. Ruapehu at 2.00 AM in order to catch the sunrise at the top. But boy did the plan fall flat on it's face. We were taking Kit's car but he had booked it in for a service on the day - which threw the time out big time as the mechanic kept postponing the time when the car would delivered. It was constant text and phone calls between Kelly {Sara was at Kelly's place}, Kit & me and it felt like we would have to cancel the program altogether because of the delays but we finally managed to get going around 6.30 PM.
Sara kicks an embarrassed Kit as Kelly smiles
Happy to finally be on the road
Kit driving us to Ohakune
Long journeys can be boring
Something obviously amused me
A religious biker - you don't find many of those around
The drive itself was pretty uneventful and we had a dinner break at Te Kuiti before heading on towards Ohakune. The one observation that we did make was that we would come across 1 car every 5 KM in the stretch between Te Kuiti and Taumarunui - a distance of 65KM. Things you do to pass time. :-) We got to Ohakune at 11.00 PM which meant that we could get about an hour and half's sleep {after accounting for the time to settle in and fall asleep} before we had to get up at 1.00 AM in order to start the 2.00 AM climb.
Day-2 {Saturday} THE CLIMB
All of us woke up on time and got out of the house at 1.30PM. The good thing about climbing the mountain is that you don't have to start at the absolute bottom. There are car parks at 1600m level - which is the starting point even during the winter skiing season. On the way to the car park,we spotted 2 wild deer, which is pretty unsual and we were excited about that and that definitely put us in the right frame of mind for the climb.
The last time I was at Mt. Ruapehu was in August 2005 during the winter season and I didn't know what to expect in the summer season, especially since we couldn't see the 'bigger picture' in the dark, with our head lamps. Kit had a spare ice axe which he gave to me and gave me a quick tutorial on how to use it to make footholds in the ice, break a fall etc.
Wild deer in the headlights
At the car park in pitch black
Kelly with a head lamp
It's a good thing we couldn't really see too much otherwise the height of the mountain might have daunted us. The only person in the group who had done the climb before was Kit and we were following his lead.It was a hard walk and we took a few breaks from time to time to get used to the thinner air and the falling temperature. It was a challenging climb moving from loose rock to more firm footing to ice to loose rocks again. Kit decided to carry a thermos of hot coffee while I carried a thermos of hot tea and it was nice being able to drink something warm when everything else was freezing. It is extremely hard drinking water since it gets so cold up there and all you can do is take small swigs from time to time.
Kit enjoying hot coffee
Sara enjoying Hot Tea
Kelly taking a break
The Mountain & The Moon
Climbing in darkness
Breaking Dawn
The night started breaking around 4AM and we started wondering if we had miscalculated the sunrise. At the same time we were doing good pace and we were wondering if we'd get to the top before the actual sunrise but Kit kept us focussed and on track by telling us that it'd get really steep towards the top and it would take us a lot more time towards the top. And he was right. We also changed our direction slightly to move towards the east side of the mountain, so we wouldn't miss the sunrise if we had indeed miscalculated.
Sara and Kelly take a breather
Kit finds a good route
Bird's eye view from the top
The ascent continues
2/3rd of our way up the mountain, Kelly started feeling unwell because of lack of sleep combined with the physical exertion and the height and temperature, so Kit asked her to turn back and return to shelter - the last {first from top of the mountain} chairlift station. Once Kelly started her descent back - Sara, Kit and me continued towards the peak and we caught the sunrise from near top.
Sunrise over Mt. Ruapehu
Light spreading over the land
We still had a little bit to climb and it was probably the hardest part of the climb.It was like a sheer wall and to add to the challenge it was pretty stony - small stones with big stones, so it was hard to get solid footholds to keep climbing easily. You basically have to use your entire body to crawl up. There were atleast 2 'Oh Shit' moments for me as the stones slipped away from under my feet and I was scrambling on quickly with my hands to hold onto dear life. One mistake up there and it's pretty easy to fall to your death. It's also amazing that in moments of danger your whole being kicks into another gear and you start doing things instinctively - in survival mode. Another thing that changed suddenly was the wind had picked up going from West to East and it was beating us into the mountain. It made the final ascent extremely hard.
Taking a photograph up on the mountain meant a long hard struggle to remove your gloves, unzip the camera bag, switch on the camera, compose a shot, take a snap, while keeping balance on uneven terrain while bracing against the wind & then putting the camera back and putting on the gloves back on again. Something so simple became such a big challenge in the extreme conditions at top of the mountain. So needless to say I value all the picks taken on this trip - especially the ones on the mountain during the climb.
Once we got to the top - we took a short break on the north side of the mountain, behind a small rock outcrop. It protected us from the wind and then we decided to walk across towards the main crater.
We take a breather behind the rock outcrop before heading towards the crater
Sky opening up
This was probably the most memorable part of the climb because it was a bigger challenge than any of us had anticipated. Kit was leading the way and because he was experienced on ice - he was making good ground but I was struggling against the strong winds as I was cutting in footholds in the ice on either side of the mountain as we were on the ridge and Sara was behind me {and she didn't have an ice axe}. Half way on the ridge - the wind really picked up speed and I was finding it harder and harder to make footholds as my face and tip of the fingers {even though I was wearing gloves} started going numb in the freezing winds and the sheer drops on either side of the mountain started playing on my mind. The problem was that there was no way you could take a break without freezing yourself on the top,so I looked around to see how Sara was doing and she was sitting down with one leg on either side of the mountain. I didn't feel like continuing any further and asked her about her thoughts and she said that she didn't mind going back down. On the mountain- one has to work with the conditions and it is better to be safe than sorry because there is literally no room for mistake. And with the wind really bashing our already tired bodies, it seemed more sensible to turn back rather than being fool hardy and continuing on. So we yelled out to Kit and told him that it would be better to go back as we didn't feel we could make the journey across the ridge successfully. Kit agreed to the assessment and so we turned back.
The descent begins
We started making our way back. If you are an experienced climber or trekker, you would know that the descent is always harder than the ascent. The ascent might take more time but the descent is where your endurance is really tested. Plus you are using an entirely different set of body muscles to balance yourselves as you try to climb down.The top of the moutain was again the hardest bit to climb down as you get used to shifting your centre of gravity and also the loose rocks combined with the super steep mountain side. Sara was like a race horse and she did awesome time climbing down and was ahead of us while Kit tried dragging himself down across the snow to save on clambering down the hard bits but he had to give up after a while and return to clambering down the rocks as he was feeling tired and didn't have enough strength left to support the fall of his whole body.
Mt. Taranaki in the distance
Back towards the Turoa side
We chanced upon 2 climbers around the half way mark as they were making the way to the top. The knees felt like jelly by the time we all caught up at the closed cafe on the mountain. Kelly was feeling a lot better and it was good that she did not sccumb to falling asleep as that would have been bad at that height. After eating some food and catching a break we continued our journey downwards and it was pretty uneventful for rest of the way down. I did get teased for wearing a pair of jeans for climbing. :-)
Crossing paths with some climbers
Kelly relieved while Kit takes a sip
After drinking last of the tea - which had gone cold after the climb to the top
Kit, Kelly & Sara looking back at what we had climbed
A successful ascent completed - the team @ the car park
All of us were thrilled that we had actually achieved what we set out to do. The whole climb had taken us about 7.5 hours round trip and a few congratulations later, we were back to the chalet in Ohakune to catch up on some much needed sleep.
View of Mt. Ruapehu from the chalet we were staying at
Ohakune town centre
We slept for 4 hours odd before we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed out to Tokaanu, an hour north of Ohakune, where the hot pools are located to relax our battered bodies. It definitely did us heaps of good as it relaxed the muscles. We took the long route back to Ohakune via the Desert Road, which is weirdly scenic. It's rugged landscape has it's own charm. The only thing I remember after that is that we grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants and I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed - an added factor to it would have been the severe cold I had picked up from the mountain climb.
Kit smiling at the mountain
Celebrating the climb and the trip to the hot pools with a drink
Desert Road
Power lines
Rugged NZ Landscape
DAY-3 (Sunday) THE RETURN
I woke up feeling much better at 6.30AM, which meant my body clock was almost back in synch. Kelly, Sara and Kit woke up in their own time and we cleaned up the chalet, which Kit's family {& Kit} had let us use for the trip. All of us had a good banter and great laughs on the way back - which made the journey back seem shorter.
Kit signing off on the calender detailing the successful climb
On Kelly's suggestion we stopped over at
Waitomo to get some information about the caves and ended up doing an impromptu glow worm cave tour. It was fantastic and it's a pity that we were only allowed to take photos at the end of the tour, away from the main glow worm formations. It definitely whetted my appetite and I might go back later at some point to do their longer 4 hour abseiling adventure you go in deeper underground and explore the cave systems. We grabbed lunch at a cafe {I think it was called HuHu cafe} just down the road from the information centre. The service was extremely slow and the portions were small but it had an awesome spot and it was a good break to our return journey.
Waiting to get into the glow worm caves
Towards the end of the cave
The stalactites
Getting out from the cave
We got back to Auckland in the evening and after that it was farewell time, with the next trip being planned in Feb for doing Tongariro crossing {might add in climbing Mt. Ngauruhoe to make it more interesting and challenging} - supposed to be one of the best 1 day hikes in NZ. Overall it was an awesome adventure with friends and I am filled with a sense of achievement and excitement.
Now it's back to the humdrum of Auckland till the next trip.
Amit
