New Zealand- Taranaki

from tongariro we headed south to wanganui. the town itself is nothing to write home about. sort of pretty, sort of ghetto all at once. we staying in a nice place on the river front. that's about all you need to know.

john and i decided to hike mt taranaki 2 days after  arriving in wanganui. the weather was supposed to be excellent for a hike, so we jumped at it. unfortunately, taranaki is approximately 2.5 hours east of wanganui. so if you plan on hiking at 8 ish, you leave by 5:30-6 ish. urgh. john's parents came along, but chose not to hike the summit with us this time (they'd done it previously) and instead did a nice day hike along the rim of the mountain.

taranaki (mt is redundant as tara means mountain in maori) is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. luckily, the last major eruption was in 1655. though some scientists are saying that it will erupt within the next 50 years and cause devastation to the north island of NZ. let's hope they're wrong. taranaki is also considered to be the most dangerous mountain in NZ, claiming many lives over a 10 year period (more then mt cook, on the south island. apparently due to the extreme changes in weather that can occur in minutes and white outs caused by blowing clouds. we hoped we'd prepared well enough!

with a clear sky ahead, we were ready. the first part of the hike is along an old 4x4 dirt/rock road. it's a slow, steady incline with unparalleled views of the valley: green and lush with trees, blue skies and white clouds rolling in. the 4x4 track leads to "the puffer" and incredibly steep few hundred meters up a poorly cemented road. it's called the puffer for a reason, as we were puffin' pretty hard by the time we reached the top of it. it 

from there we started on the actual "ascent to the peak". first along rocks and trail, then to the stairs. at this point a white cloud was had reached the mountain and started to make visibility a touch poorer. thankfully we ran into a few locals (some who'd done it before) and we were told that white clouds aren't a problem and you will generally climb out of them quickly. so we persevered.

at the top of the stairs is scree. lots and lots of loose, scree. it's like climbing up a sand dune for nearly 600-700 meters, only more treacherous; if you slip and keep sliding, you're done for. it's painfully slow, though we did manage to keep plodding along without many stops. we kept our eyes open for the orange guide poles to let us know we were still on the right track. we did climb out of the clouds though. and it was pretty neat to be above them.

once at the top of the scree, you reach the lava flow which leads to the peak. we thought that finishing the scree meant we were getting close. we were wrong! clambering up the lava was slow and arduous. rough edged rocks, scree, poor footing and difficulty seeing far above yourself made it all the more challenging. i just kept thinking that we had to get down it all at some point! 

we rounded the "corner" to the crater just before the real peak. the crater is called the false peak. i think a lot of people don't bother climbing up the last little bit to the true peak. the crater was filled with soft, spring-like snow. we scurried up the snowy side of the true peak, just cause we felt we should. the vie

w from the top was outstanding. well above the clouds, we could see the ocean in 3 directions and could even see mt ruapehu in the distance. we ate our lunch at the top before deciding we should head down.

the return trip took just as long as the climb. usually you can shave some time off but not on taranaki. the descent on the lava flow took forever, requiring a lot of arm work to lower yourself from rock to rock (my triceps were sore the next day). and while you kind of want to "ski" down the scree, you really don't go too fast. one false step and you're slipping a long way down a rock-face. not to mention that another, thicker cloud had rolled in. at one point on the scree, i couldn't see very far beyond john.

trodding down the stairs and 4x4 path back to the base wasn't too bad. just a bit hard on the quads by the end of it. we finished the hike in about 6 hours total and aside from a few incidental scrapes and scratches, we faired well.

when we were nearing the peak, we ran into a older hiker, probably in his 70's. we was on his way down (we hadn't reached the peak yet, so he was either incredibly fit or left early...or both!) he told us that we had "great weather today. when i climbed this trail yesterday, it was too cloudy to see anything". yesterday! turns out, he's done the hike 700 times already (probably more by now). 700 times! crazy old man.  don't get me wrong, we really enjoyed the hike- the weather was tops, the view was incredible and the hike itself was a great challenge. but i never, ever need to do it 699 more times!

xo