Missed Summit

Another trip to Tongariro today, with the intent of heading up to the summit and back. We had hoped for a good covering of snow, but instead found that the mountain was almost devoid of snow. Assumed we wouldn't be needing the walking poles and ice axe, so removed them from my pack and off we went.

Icy ground around the crater rim.

To cut a long story short, in exposed places the wind was quite cold. Up on the crater rim it was also very strong and we put all our gear on - hats, gloves, water- and wind-proof jacket and over-trousers. Made our way around to the critical shaded slope and found that it was iced up. The foot track was something of a ledge, and for what seemed like about half the way it was ok, but then it became narrower, more slippery, and dangerous. With no ice axe it was time to turn back.

The decision point: left across the shaded slope
(tried that, turned back); straight ahead over the
knob; right to the North Crater saddle and back via
the west face and Hardman's Ridge; or just turn
around and go back?

Back off the shaded slope we noticed that the wind had picked up and we were getting cold. Hunker down behind a boulder while we decided what to do. One option was to head up and over the knob and continue on to the summit. This looked feasible but we were cold and coming back around into the wind didn't seem like much fun. A second option was to just turn back into the wind and head back down into South Crater. I wasn't too keen on this, as again it meant perhaps 30 minutes into the wind, and a steep and slightly icy descent into the crater.

The track on the shaded slope, at about the point
that we turned around.

The summit is just up there! But the wind was roaring...

My preference was to go to the right around the knob to the saddle with North Crater, and from there head back to the ridge above the Mangatepopo Valley (Hardman's Ridge). I went ahead and checked that the terrain was free of ice and then we set off on this option. Taking care to stay high and avoid the steep sided gullies we made good progress. Much to Heather's surprise we did indeed pick up a clear but unmarked track up on the ridge. We followed this down the valley for a while and then started looking for the way down. After a couple of false starts we found where the track down came out down by the stream. We started off cross-country down hill and then happened across the downhill track. From there it was easy travel back to the main tourist track and back to the car.

Heather had initially been a little reticent when I had suggested the off-track travel back to the car. But the terrain was good, route-finding was easy, some fun running on soft scree and moss, and for the most part we were out of the cold wind. The air temperature was about 2 degrees celsius, with winds of perhaps 50-60km/h and higher on the crater rim. The resulting wind chill took the temperature well below zero, soan option that took us out of the wind made for a much morre comfortable and enjoyable day.

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