bad ass
So, I climbed a 2,200+ metre active volcano.
It's safe to say that was probably one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. (It was pretty bad ass, if you ask me Steve.)
In fact, lots of things about this weekend were pretty bad ass.
We should start with were we tented.
(My parents are going to love this blog. Please note that I was safe, and we travelled in packs, etc. etc.)
Anyhow, instead of driving to the campsite, (apparently this campsite was a mission into the woods), the group of us (excluding myself) decided we should just pull over somewhere and set up our tents. Which turned out to be right beside this school house. IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! It was creepy as, because the school house light was turned on but no one was in it.
It was the beginnings of a horror movie.
I swear I heard noises in the middle of the night. And it was freaking cold, even with 5 of us jammed into a 3 person tent, with Eirik telling us of his life story as a child in Norway. *shudder*
We woke up at 5:30 in the am. Well technically I never really fell asleep because I was waiting to die, but we actually got up that early. We left the school yard and made our way to Tongariro National Park. We drove through flatlands the entire time and in the far off distance was Mount Ngauruhoe. (aka MOUNT DOOM! from LOTR)
We knew well in advance that we were going to be climbing this, so we pumped up some Aerosmith and tried to ignore that fact, as we drove along above the clouds, with the sunrise.
Tongaririo National Park:
One of New Zealand's oldest and most famous parks, home of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, voted as the best one-day hike in NZ, and among the Top Ten in the entire world!
This is what we planned to conquer, a 19 km walk with steep climbs, it takes from 7 to 10 hours to walk the entire thing - this was NOT including our decision to also climb Mt. Ngauruhoe, there's no trail for that as its not part of the Alpine Crossing. (bad ass).
It's safe to say that this walk was far from easy. We started around 8am, and it was still really cold out. We hiked along beautiful streams and waterfalls, weird rock formations and cliffs. The trail led us to the bottom of Mount Ngauruhoe, and this is where we detoured to climb the volcano.
Just a word about this volcano: it last erupted in the 1970's, it is New Zealand's newest and historically most active volcano. It is more than 2,200 meters tall, and an almost perfect symmetrical cone - which it was why it was chosen to be the infamous Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have yet to see these movies but maybe I should.
So we climbed this volcano, creating our own pathway to the top because there was none. I was wearing running shoes but probably should have had a pick-axe and spiky shoes, because we were essentially rock climbing. It took more than 2 hours and was one of the most strenuous things I've put my body through. I would take like 5 steps and need to take a break. And I constantly looked up and saw how far ahead the top was, and how steep the slope was, and how many rocks I had to climb over. Note: if you ever climb a volcano, know what you are getting into before you do it!
It was fun when we hit snow, because it was pretty hot out, we were having snowball fights in tee-shirts and shorts.
Reaching the top was 100% worth it. It was such an amazing feeling I can't even put it to words. The view took my breath away!
And the volcanic crater was HUGE. I should have thrown a ring into it. There were places where the volcano was steaming, but no lava, unfortunately. boo!
Climbing down the volcano was probably more dangerous than climbing up, because when you took steps, the rocks would get dislodged and start tumbling down the side of the mountain. I tried to stop a giant boulder telepathically by reaching my hands out and creating a force field, but sadly it did not work (this time) so I ended up getting nicely cut up by this rock. (so bad ass). (but I'm okay, mom, no worries!)
This is why we needed to find a better way to descend. There was a lot of snow, up to my waist actually. Walking down that was hard too because you would sink so deep with every step.
So we tobogganed down.
We tobogganed down the side of a volcano.
We tobogganed super fast down the side of a 2,200 meter volcano in New Zealand.
This set the bar pretty high for awesomeness. One of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences, that I can't believe I actually did. SO COOL!
woo
Anyway, we continued along the Alpine Crossing, pretty gosh darn exhausted but we still had more than half of the track left to hike. And a lot of it was still uphill. The path led us up toward Mount Tongariro, but definitely did not have the time nor will power to climb another mountain that day, so we headed towards the Emerald lakes.
Three lakes that are a gorgeous shade of blue/green, in the middle of these rocky mountains.
Then we continued to the Blue lake, which had water bluer than the quarry water at our farm, and surrounded by mountains.
The rest of the hike we completed as the sunset over a beautiful landscape, and through the woods. By the time we were almost done, we were hiking in complete darkness in the middle of a forest… I was searching for Kiwi birds of which I saw none.
When we finally finished, I was sooooo drained. At the beginning of the trip I was doing high kicks, and now I could barely lift my leg up at all.
I don't know if I've ever walked 11 hours straight… this was probably the first. Maybe the last.
