We made our way down to Tongariro National
Park over the weekend. The highlight was traversing the Tongariro Alpine
Crossing on Saturday aka "the best one day walk in New Zealand."
We were lucky to have great clear weather.
The crossing passes between two volcanoes, Mt.
Ngauruhoe and Mt. Tongariro, with views of a third, Mt. Ruapehu. Ngauruhoe has a near perfect cone and (along with Ruapehu) starred in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as Mt. Doom. Mt. Taranaki, the other big volcano on the north island, was also visible on Saturday.
The crossing starts at around 1100m, tops out
around 1900m and then it's all the way back down to about 750m. Our sore legs today can attest to the elevation change! We took a chilly side
trip to the top of Ngauruhoe for some extra Cinco de Mayo views.
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| That's Mt. Taranaki in distance about 130km away |
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| Ngauruhoe Summit |
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| Jesse finally convinces me of the utility of fingerless gloves by eating cheese and crackers on top of a windy, freezing mountain! |
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| A few hobbits + some CGI = Mt. Doom |
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| Home stretch |
