Mount Taranaki Part 2: The Summit

I believe we left off last week when I was at the faux-summit, almost to the top of Mount Taranaki. Today, the story continues.

This is looking back down from that faux-summit. The brownish area between all the green peaks is apparently a swampy area that's quite interesting to hike through. I might have to do that someday.

Just on the other side of my faux-summit is the crater, which is full of ice and snow year-round! I didn't know that it was there, because during summer and autumn the mountain looks snow-free. It was pretty amazing to discover.

There was one more grueling climb before we were all the way at the summit, and Lynette, who had already zoomed up there, encouraged us on our way up.

This is my favourite view, I think. A lovely rock structure (called Inuksuks in Canada, and it's still the word I use), followed by the lush green of Taranaki countryside, and then the cool blue of the ocean. With fluffy clouds for an extra flourish.

I also love this picture, because the peaks of four of my favourite mountains are all together. Left to right, we have Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu, and then, of course, Taranaki front and centre.

Again, love the clouds moving around the peaks and valleys, and it is so special that the ocean is right there!

Kirsten, Lynette, and I at the summit, feeling pretty accomplished.

Even a little bit higher than the large summit area was this big boulder. Kirsten and Lynette decided they were high enough, but I wanted to be at the tippy-tip-top, so here I am!

We had lunch at the summit, which was great. Lynette then warned us that we'd better get going down, because it had taken us over 8 hours to climb up, and if it took us many more to get down, we'd end up on jagged volcanic rocks in the dark. I thought we'd have plenty of time, because down is much easier, but we hadn't brought torches (flashlights), so we got a move on.

Remember how I just said down was easier? Not as true as you'd think. We went down a different route than we'd come up, but it was almost as jagged, and required a lot of careful maneuvering. 

After the jagged rocks came the scoria, which I learned on this trip is small pieces of volcanic rock that function very much like ball bearings when it comes to traction, but hurt more when you fall on them. I basically skied down, while Kirsten elected mostly sliding on her bottom. My way is faster, but more likely to result in falls, while hers is safer and slower.

Also, how awesome is that upright rock on the promontory? And the mist makes it look like a castle at the end of the world.

As the sun started setting (at about hour 11 of 13 total) the views were magnificent. I took a few quick pictures, but we were largely focused on getting off the second set of jagged volcanic rocks that we discovered below the scoria.

Even in our rushed state, all three of us stopped for a moment to marvel at one of the most amazing and beautiful things we'd ever seen. Mount Ruapehu was lit up by the sunset, and the blazing fuchsia was even more stunning in real life. 

We just barely managed to get off the hazardous climbing parts before it was fully dark, which was a relief. We then walked for about an hour and a half through what I'm sure was beautiful forest, but I can't be sure, as it was completely dark. But that was okay. The hike took at total of 13 hours, as I mentioned, so we were content to be fairly quiet and just keep walking.

With the hour drive on either end of the hike, it was a long day to say the least, but I slept very well that night and was only a little bit sore the next day. I woke up feeling rested, but it didn't last very long, and I ended up taking a long nap when I finally made it back to Wellington. The following day I was a bit more sore and did a lot of whining, but overall I felt that my body handled the experience very well. All my insane biking up the ridiculously steep Wellington hills has had a positive effect, I think.

As hard as this climb was, it was also an incredible adventure, and the difficulty made me feel deeply satisfied and quite proud of myself. I'm thinking I might do it again someday.