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Ngauruhoe and Taranaki climbing

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Date: 4th-6th July 2018

Participants: Sean Thompson, Anoek Grosmann, Laura Jacks, Jason Rosinger, Conor Nelson, Max Jenkins, Caroline Provo Author: Max Jenkins


 “Pretty keen to get up at 3am” -Jason Rosinger


We did so on one misty Friday morning, and huddled into our cars to make our way to the elusive National park. My car, “the Lichenmobile”, is a bit antique, and its aircon wasn’t feeling too good, so we spent a while with Jason’s beautiful new RAB Neutrino endurance sleeping bag on top of us (basically like seeing the face of God) and making stops at each Maccas along the way to see if we could get some student fries and ice cream. The day warmed up and as we ran into some wonderful muffins and croissants in the Taumaranui Countdown we began to feel like going up Ngauruhoe in the same day as driving there might just work.



“Probably don’t follow me. The ice just made a funky sound” - Max Jenkins


Being particularly clever, we skipped the devil’s staircase and tried to go up a more direct route using a scree slope. This probably wasted us a fair bit of time, but, you know.. fun. This called for a break. The climb up the ridge is interesting for some of the flimsier bits of rime ice, particularly if you value your crampons. We got there with time, effort and gummy bears and took selfies on top before deciding the wind is very much cold and the sun was getting low, and looking rather tentatively at the steepish descent.


We did get a beautiful sunset on the way down, which happened just in time for Jason to realise he was missing a glove. We went back down the shortcut from the devil’s staircase with torches scanning for a black glove against black rocks. By some miracle we did find them (credit to Anoek Grosmann). As I write this Jason is now on his fourth instance of leaving gloves behind and they’re currently in my house sitting next to a pile of spiky things which are waiting to go to Toby’s place, after he left them in my car. No judge.


We got home after an exciting night time gravel drive in “The Lichenmobile” and after dinner happened to make a very special round of hot chocolate. This was so strong it put us all to sleep and forever destroyed our plans of getting up at 3am again to climb Taranaki. We woke up at something something 10am.


The next day or two involved a series of short (and somewhat questionable) adventures during which we gradually descended into insanity. First things first, we tried to go to

Mangaturuturu hut down the waterfall face from Oakhune mountain road. We got there, made it part of the way down the waterfall, and found something that could sort of pass for an ice climb.


Sort of. We didn’t have crampons on us because, obviously.. but we all had a go, and, well,

doing ice climbs without crampons turns out to be surprisingly tricky; who knew? While not climbing we also took a few rather seductive photos of Jason which are MINE. YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM.


We also made a snowman by Turoa skifield and gave it hugs. Caroline was, for a short time, part of the party. This was followed by a wonderful cook off that evening, in which Conor attempted to deepfry mars bars and failed miserably, for which we still haven’t forgiven him!’


“Not like this, dude” - Conor, upon failing to deepfry his mars bars.


The following day the plan was to go to blyth hut, drop off Sean and Anoek to go do a round the mountain trip and head back, nice and simple. We started off this trip with an interesting delicacy. If you put 10 or so gummy bears and a couple of spoonful’s of Nutella into a tortilla wrap you get something which has a very high energy content but is also absurdly difficult to eat. 10/10 would recommend.

Unfortunately Conor found out that he was missing some essential food ingredients part way along the walk. He absolutely had to go back to the car and get it, so we made our way up close to Blyth hut to chill and wait for him. In a moment of genius, he missed the turnoff to Blyth hut and went a solid while before realising that this wasn’t the boardwalk he was looking for. He came back to find a crime scene!


That stuff could be best described as ‘liquid strawberry flavoured sugar’ and makes for excellent slushies. It’s rather a delicacy to eat said slushy off the adze of an ice-axe. By the time Sean and Anoek headed off to their round the mountain trip they were bouncing from the amount of sweets we had pumped into them, and ready to face the 100km/h winds that was in the forecast the following couple of days.


That part wasn’t a joke. Sean and Anoek did the round the mountain, walking from Rangipo to Waihohonu hut in 100k winds and snow while the rest of us settled down to a road trip of ABBA, student fries and lichen.

“I still haven’t summited Taranaki. Send help”

-Max, the National Park hut book (2016-2018)


Jason proceeded to take me up Ruapehu and get up at 5am a couple of weeks later. Clearly none of us have learned our lessons.


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