So for some reason I signed up for the Tongariro Crossing that started my day today at 5:30am!!! The bus picked up myself and three guys I've met here and after awhile we were at what is described in the pamphlet at "the best one-day hike in New Zealand." It was definitely worth it! We started hiking through the valley at 7:30am, the whole hike is 18.5 kilometers but as we were making good time after conquering the Devils Staircase we decided to hike up the Ngauruhoe Summit. (2287m) Most of you will know this mountain by it's more famous name as "Mt. Doom" in the Lord of the Rings movies. It's actually quite a hazardous little trek up the side of one of the more active volcanoes in the country, it actually erupted as recently as 1975. The trek took three hours but that doesn't really do it justice. The volcano is so steep that in many places you have to use your hands to pull yourself up onto rocks and ledges. One lady almost bit it when a landslide started and a rock the size of a basketball picked up some momentum and started to roll towards her 500 meters bellow us! Luckily the guys who started the landslide saw it happen and screamed at her to duck out of the way and it probably missed her by no more than three feet. The decent was even trickier as one tumble and you would wake up in a medic helicopter air lifting you off the mountain. Last week one guy had to get the $5000 lift into town because he broke two ribs, a leg and his collar bone! We figured out that the best way to do it was to simply run a traverse across the mountain and treat it as a ski slope which seemed to work fairly well despite the number of close calls we had! After a quick stop for lunch, (I forgot to buy some....to quote my dad, "way to go Will." So I had a liquid lunch of H2o and then we kept pushing. The scenery was spectacular, especially Blue and Emerald Lake and the Red Crater. The hike finished with a descent in the Ketetahi forest and by the time we reached the pick up point at 3:40 we were exhausted!! I haven't eaten today since I didn't have time for breakfast so I'm about to dive into the $10 hostel bbq, hopefully they'll let me build a pile of potato salad that's as big as Mt. Doom. Miss you all!
