Climbing Mount Doom

We’ve added photos to the New Zealand album.  Enjoy!

When we reached the north island we had one main thing that we wanted to do; the Tongariro Crossing.  Tbe
Crossing is a 1-day, 17 km walk that takes you through dramatic volcanic landscape.  It has a stark beauty that was the reason it was chosen as the filming site for the Mordor and Mount Doom scenes from the Lord of the Rings movie. 

It so happened that a friend from work,
Gord, was planning on doing the Crossing on the same day.  We met up the night before for some catching up before having a big pasta meal that Penny prepared.  Full of carbs for the long walk the next day we called it a night and went to bed early. 

At 6 AM the next morning our shuttle took us to the departure point where we started our walk in the dark.
The landscape was barren and rugged with a few patches of hardy grasses and tiny white flowers being the only plants growing.  We followed a sloping path up that was easy walking at first but gradually became steeper.  After the steepest part of the climb we came to a “saddle” where we had to decide whether to climb to the summit of Mt Ngauruhoe (the real name for Mount Doom) at over 2200 meters in altitude or continue along the regular path.  Being the adventurous group we were we headed off to the volcanic slopes and started to climb.

As the path was unmarked, we followed another group of hikers and headed up the loose, sandy, rocky slope.
With every step we took we would slip in the loose ground and making upwards progress was difficult.  “There’s got to be a better path” was our refrain for the first hour.  Then off to our left in the distance we saw hikers taking a firmer and more secure path where they were making much faster progress than we were.  We briefly attempted to cross over to where they were but the ground between us was too loose and dangerous.  We perched on some rocks to rest and decide what to do.  After about 2 hours of hard climbing we could see that we had less than a quarter of the way to go.  But the climb had been very tough and the slope had increased in steepness to what Gord and I estimated was about 40 degrees.   As we sat there, basketball sized rocks came tumbling down the hill from the group ahead and narrowly missed us.  We were beaten. We reluctantly agreed to give up and head back down.  Somehow we had taken the wrong route to the summit and would not climb Mount Doom that day.   

Our attempt had taken a total of 3 hours and left us drained for the remainder of the Tongariro Crossing walk.  Back on the regular path, we had one more steep climb that brought us to the steaming red crater.  The ground felt warm to the touch and steam swirled about.  We descended from there to have lunch on the shore of the sulfur-smelling Emerald Lakes.

The rest of the way was mainly downhill.  Because  of all the time spent trying to climb Mount Doom, we had to maintain a steady fast pace to make it back in time for our shuttle pick-up at the end point of the hike.  This was easy because a couple of us had to use the toilet and were in a rush anyways.  At
5 PM we dragged ourselves onto the shuttle, exhausted and looking forward to a good meal and a beer in the hotel lounge.

Gord – thanks for a great hike and making sure we set a fast pace.