Location: Tongariro
Author: James Killick
Participants: James Killick, Ben Ward, Hayden Noyce
Date: 9th-11th August 2024
After completing the moonlight crossing, I realised I liked sleeping too much to do it again. Inspired by an NZAC member I met during the crossing, I devised a plan to summit Tongariro via Hardman’s Ridge and maybe knock off Ngauruhoe if we were up to it.
Pros:
| Cons
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We arrived at Tongariro to a full car park. Slightly concerned and propelled by an oncoming car, we boosted our way to the Mangatepopo hut. After backtracking to recover a dropped crampon we arrived at Mangatepopo to the sight of a person sleeping on the deck. My heart definitely sank a little. Fortunately, there were enough beds inside for us. However, the same cannot be said for the group behind us.
We were simultaneously the first to rise on Saturday and one of the last to leave due to an abhorrent amount of alpine gear faff, but eventually, we were up Hardman’s Ridge. This was the first point in which my mouth had the misfortune of tasting the snack known as “Squid Jerky”. Ben had mentioned that he purchased a bag from Costco the day earlier however I didn’t think much of it. Now the crisp Tongariro air was replaced with the smell of fish, a pretty bad tradeoff if you ask me. Anyways we made it up through some sizable snowdrifts and up Tongariro.

While walking down the icy South Crater we passed several groups of tourists in sneakers with one even wearing jeans. I guess the news stories are true. At this point Ben had finished the entire 350g bag of squid jerky, and let's just say that squid had intentions of getting back to the sea ASAP.
After returning to the hut, we realised how boring we were after talking to a group who were in the process of climbing the four largest North Islands volcanics, skiing down them and bikepacking between them (yes, they had to bike to New Plymouth!).
There were debates on Sunday if a Ruapehu summit really counts if you catch the gondola and the jury verdict was that any gondola assisted summit would count as cheating. While we probably wouldn't make it to the summit due to time constraints, we decided to see how far we could make it. Delta Ridge was rocky af, which actually made for a fun mixed rock and ice ascent towards the NZAC hut. We continued up from the hut another 250m or so, punching through the inversion layering and being rewarded with a bluebird day. At the turnaround point, I checked on my map, and we were ~20m higher than the Far West T-Bar, which is the highest I had been on Ruapehu prior to the trip. I'll call that a success of some kind.
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