Skiing and tramping in the Tongariro National park - Part 4 (Mt. Ruapehu summit)

Mt. Ruapehu from Ohakune. Our route would be up the ridge in the centre.

After drinking too much wine one evening we had plotted to climb to the summit of Mt. Ruapehu. It is the highest mountain in the North Island and at just under 2800metres above sea level, would present us with a very hard challenge.

We got up nice and early and headed to the base of the ski field. Unfortunately we were not allowed to use the chair lifts unless we were skiing, so that meant walking up through the ski fields to the base of the ridge we wanted to climb.

Heading up from the top of the chair lift

We had calculated on reaching the top chair lift within three and a half hours. We reached it in one and three quarter hours, so our morale was sky high. It was only 10am and we calculated we could be on the summit by noon.

Our joy was short lived as I checked the route before us. The ridge I had wanted to climb to get to the top was far too steep to even try and we had no ropes or harnessess with us. We did have our ice axes and crampons.

Rock hard ice. Good for crampons.

Our only hope of reaching the summit was via a wide gully which seemed less steep than the ridge. We started off and made good progress. We were now only 100 metres below the summit.

We could smell the sulphur fumes being emitted by the crater lake just over the other side of the summit. The major problem for us was the steepness of the ice. We were on a fifty degree slope with big exposure. The ice was now so hard that we could hardly stamp our crampons into it.

Oh dear, this is getting serious now.

The decision was made to retreat before one of us had a fall. If we had fallen it would have been pretty serious, so as Don Whillans the famous mountaineer once said, "The mountains will be here next year lad, just make sure you are"

James at the high point of the day

The route back down the face was very slow going as we needed to tread very carefully. We managed to get down safely and in retrospect we made the right decision to turn back, even though we were so close to the top.

We still managed to get some good pictures and hopefully we can summit it in the future.

Hayley on the ice slope

Looking across to the summit

Hayley on the way back down

Chilling out after a long tough day in the mountains

Skiing and tramping in the Tongariro National park - Part 3 (Skiing again)

Looking down one of the runs

Another nice blue sky day

After our walk on the round the mountain track it was back to the skiing. The weather was being kind to us and gave us another nice blue sky day.

Nice hat!

Hayley posing again!



It was pretty busy on the slopes because it is currently half term for the schools.

Charlie at the bottom of the home run

Skiing and tramping in Tongariro National park - Part 2 (Tramping)

Treasure at the end of the rainbow!

Hayley playing in the snow near the start of the walk

A nice easy bridge crossing (wish they were all like that!)

Whilst the boys continued skiing Hayley and myself planned to complete some of the famous round the mountain track walk and top off the week by summiting Mt. Ruapehu.

Waitonga Falls

The round the mountain track is a five day wilderness trek, but we only planned on tramping up to one of the overnight huts on the south side of the mountain and back again.

Dodgy river crossing coming up!

Made it to the first hut.

We reached the hut bang on time and had a quick break. It was really hard going in the soft snow and we had wished we had brought our sleeping bags and a bottle of wine so we could just crash for the night in the hut. It had a nice wood burner and comfy beds.


And the second hut. Half way point!

Snow outside the hut

We left the hut on our return journey back to the car and by the end of the day we both had soaking wet feet from completing so many river crossing's. I also had the joy of falling backwards into a freezing cold river after a branch I was stood on snapped! The walk had prepared us well for what was coming up at the end of the week when we would be going for the icy summit of Mt. Ruapehu.

Skiing and tramping in Tongariro National park - Part 1 (Skiing)

Our accomodation for the week

On 9th July we headed down to Ohakune for a week of skiing and tramping/mountaineering. We were staying in the rather unusual Turoa Yurt Village. The buildings are circular and are based on Mongolian Herdsmen's housing.

There had been over two metres of new snow during the previous week, so we were glad that the roads had been cleared a couple of days before we left to head south.

Looking up to the top of the ski lifts

Hayley and James getting in a tangle

Go for it!


The skiing was great and so was the weather as we finished our first day on the slopes. The weather then took a turn for the worse and we had two days of heavy rain, causing the rivers to go into spate.

This was a small stream the previous day!

The bad weather enabled me to visit the local police station and make some more enquiries about working in the area in the future.

An acclimatisation walk along Sunset Beach

The edge of the sand dunes at Sunset beach

As our new arrivals started to get over their jet lag we thought it would be a good idea to blow the cobwebs away with an afternoon stroll along sunset beach at Port Waikato.

It's a bit windy!

It was really windy and there were some huge waves. The nice cold wind helped everyone to get used to the winter weather here at the moment!

Looking along the beach

Charlie running through the foam

The arrival of the Motley Crew

The flight from the UK heads over Greenland

On Wednesday 2nd July we welcomed back Cherry, Gary and Bill for a one month holiday. This is their second visit in six months and the plan is to head off to Ohakune for a week skiing and tramping before Charlie, Gary and Bill head to Queenstown for another week skiing.

Cherry is staying at our Pukekohe house whilst we go to the ski fields.