The Tongariro Crossing

The Tongariro Crossing is one of the top day hikes in the world through volcanoes and sulfur lakes, including the volcano Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings!!! (which is actually Mt. Nguaruhoe in real life). The hike was about 18 km which normally takes about 7-8 hours, but we did it in 6. There was a good portion of the hike that was up steep hills and extremely challenging, but the rewarding feeling at the end was so worth it!

above the clouds!!

We drove up to Tongariro National Park on Friday evening with Emily, Daniela, Lori, Christie, MK, Jess, and Pat and stayed in a hostel near the crossing. The hostel was pretty nice, had a fire and free tea to warm us up! Our shuttle left at 8:00 in the morning and brought us to the crossing, and later picked us up on the other end of it. When we first started walking it was a bit chilly and very cloudy out, but we were ripping off layers within minutes. The weather was crazy, changing at every height we were at, and we were pretty much walking in the clouds the entire time. One of the things we really wanted to do was hike Mt. Doom but our bus driver told us that the weather was looking unpredictable that day and if something happened they wouldn't be able to find us for weeks. We were all pretty disappointed but thought it would be best to listen to someone who knew more than we did. Here is a picture of Mt. Doom! I had to take it fast since the clouds would come rolling in within seconds. But, got a bit of sunlight for this one!

mt. doom!

Since we couldn't hike Mt. Doom, we decided to do the extra trail to the summit. As soon as we started walking higher, the wind was incredibly strong I couldn't hear anything. We were in the clouds too, so I could barely see anything and just had to look as I went step by step. Some parts were very steep and I got a little nervous that I was going to fall off the mountain! But we were fine. Here's a video of us at the top of the summit.

After that we made our way down the steep mountain, and the ground was soft dirt that you'd sink into as you walked... which made it very easy to fall (many of us wiped out). We started observing other people running down which seemed to be the easiest way to get down quickly without walling, so we ran the rest of the way, lots of fun! When we got to the bottom we took off our sneakers and dumped out inches of dirt. My sneakers are still incredibly dirty from it. We now reached the sulfur pools, which were BRIGHT blue. Here's a picture.

We knew we were ahead of schedule at this point so we took a little water break and cleaned out our shoes, and then continued on! After this point there was one more hill and then it was all down hill from there. We stopped for a lunch break overlooking a lake and then finished the trek!!! Such a good feeling to be done, but so exhausted. I was sore for days after, but it was definitely worth it! We found our shuttle and enjoyed some free tea in our hostel, then drove to Taupo to SKYDIVE!!