My Precious...
Friday (Pictures from Today)
Girls take so damn long to get ready. The manly men wanted to get going by 8am, but the girlies took until 8:30 to primp and prime for the hike today. To fend off any potential beatings, I'm slightly exaggerating. But we did wait on them.
Today's target is Mt. Ngauruhoe, better known as Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
I top off my new Camelback (plastic bag with long straw attached) with 3 litres of water. I'm not sure if I'll need it all or not, but I reason that I can always dump out the extra later. I vacillate for a few minutes between putting on my hiking boots or my tennis shoes, but ultimately settle on the tennis shoes because they're more comfortable. We're going to be hiking 20+ km today, so any slight discomfort could turn into a huge pain in the foot later.
Once we arrive at the starting point, we unload and get going. At first, the hike is uneventful, as we trudge along on a gravel path through gently rolling hills. At this point I'm thinking it'll be a pretty easy day. But then the rocks and the real hills come. The nice pretty gravel path terminates abruputly to a little trail snaking upwards through some fairly steep rocks. This is more like it.
The landscape in the area is littered with igneous rocks ranging in size from baseball to volkswagon. After looking them for a few minutes, I realize that all of these rocks came flying out of the sky from the volcano that we will be soon climbing. We can't see the peak yet--it's still covered in clouds. Regardless, I would hate to be one of the unfortunate ones that was around when this thing went off.
When I was a kid, I remember being afraid of volanoes from what they told us in class. I never wanted to set foot in Hawaii, because you never know when those things are about to go off! But the reality is, they can detect eruptions weeks in advance now, so we're OK.
The trail continues to vary between rocky embarkments and man-made paths. The trail on a whole is well maintained, even with the occasional porta-john along the way. Once we pass the last porta-john, we start what we think is the real climbing.
At this point, the trail is fairly difficult, causing us to pause every 10 minutes or so to catch our breaths. There are no trees, and very little vegetation, so it feels like we're hiking in the desert. Fortunately it's fairly cool out, and it balances perfectly with the amount of heat we generate from hiking.
About 2.5 hours into the hike, we reach the base of Ngarahoe. We've already ascended a few thousand feet and travelled several kilometers to get to this point, but we have quite a hike ahead of us. We talk to someone who just got down from the mountain, and he says it takes about 2 hours from where we are to hit the peak.
We decide to eat some lunch before continuing. We are surprised with how much altitude we've covered when we see some of our snacks have puffed up from the lower air pressure. I only have a peanut butter sandwich and some random nuts and stuff, but it keeps me satisfied. A brief pow-wow reveals the girls aren't interested in climbing a mountain and they decide to conitnue on the easier trail to go see some lakes that are supposed to be interesting.
After lunch is done, we pack up, and head off into the clouds. The cloud cover is quite close to our position now, and we can see the streams of clouds breaking over the ridge off in the distance. The cover breaks for a moment, and we get our first glimpse of what we're about to tackle. My only impression was, "We're going to climb THAT?!" The slopes of the mountain are quite steep, from our current position it appears there is nothing less than 30-40 degrees or so.
The actual climb turned out to be quite difficult. After we get into the rhythm of the climb, our pace slows considerably to a few steps every minute. The beginning was fairly straightforward, it was easy to find footing on the rocks, but the terrain quickly turns into this soft mix of ash and cobble-stone sized rocks which are extremely difficult to find a firm place to step. Often, we would take a step only to slide back a half-step. It's fairly frustrating, and extremely tiring.
I was surprised with how much the terrain changed over the course of the climb. The colors of the rocks went from gray to red to black and all sorts of variations in between. After about an hour of climbing, we finally break the cloud line and for the first time my life I am peering above the clouds without being in an airplane. The view is spectacular, and we all pause for a few minutes to snap some photos, breathe, and enjoy it.
Luke remembers that we're climbing Mt. Doom and pulls out a bag of rice cakes, offering "Lambas Bread" to anyone who's interested.
Number of "My Precious" and other various Gollum quotes heard on the hike: 15
Breathing is notably less productive as we continue to gain altitude. I'm not gasping for oxygen, but I am definitely having to take more frequent breaks than I would at sea level. Now I understand why pro football teams don't like playing in Denver.
We summit shortly before 3PM. Ngauruhoe's peak lies at about 7,500 feet. Over a mile of vertical climbing. Not bad.
The top of the volcano is actually a huge crater that you can precariously walk around. It's quite intimidating, and it looks like something you don't want to be falling into. We're not alone at the top, there are a handful of other hikers who have made it up as well. We chat briefly with them, meeitng a girl from Sweden and a guy wearing a baseball cap made of straw from California.
We look down and find the aforementioned porta-john on the landscape. It is a tiny dot. We also see the path we walked to the base on--it looks like a thread. We are HIGH.
Enough dilly-dallying at the top, it's time to go down now. We had promised the girls we would meet them at four. Getting off this thing turned out to be quite interesting and fun. It was very hard to step down the slope without falling over. However, noting that the gravel/ash combo tended to slide down pretty easily, we discovered if you plant your feet just right, you slide down at a controlled pace.
One we got the technique down, we essentially surfed the rocks down to the bottom of the mountain. The only catch was that our shoes got filled to the brim with rocks and we had to stop several times to empty them out.
We eventually regroup with the girls and begin our long journey back. My legs are starting to get tired at this point--if I bend over the wrong way, I get cramps in my quads. I rustle through my backpack and find an extra bannana; I remember hearing something about potassium helping that out.
Fortunately, since the walk until this point had all be uphill, the walk back would all be downhill. It goes by much more quickly, and we reach our van around 6PM.
What a day.
Needless to say, we're starving by now, so we go and find a local pizzaria to eat at. Jeff and I split a "prawn pizza". We're suprised when this thing arrives as it has 3 steamed-with-heads-still-atttached prawns just sitting on top of the pizza. Regardless, it was quite tasty and fills the void in my stomach.
We all crash at 10PM from exhaustion. There's much mountain biking to be done tomorrow.
Girls take so damn long to get ready. The manly men wanted to get going by 8am, but the girlies took until 8:30 to primp and prime for the hike today. To fend off any potential beatings, I'm slightly exaggerating. But we did wait on them.
Today's target is Mt. Ngauruhoe, better known as Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
I top off my new Camelback (plastic bag with long straw attached) with 3 litres of water. I'm not sure if I'll need it all or not, but I reason that I can always dump out the extra later. I vacillate for a few minutes between putting on my hiking boots or my tennis shoes, but ultimately settle on the tennis shoes because they're more comfortable. We're going to be hiking 20+ km today, so any slight discomfort could turn into a huge pain in the foot later.
Once we arrive at the starting point, we unload and get going. At first, the hike is uneventful, as we trudge along on a gravel path through gently rolling hills. At this point I'm thinking it'll be a pretty easy day. But then the rocks and the real hills come. The nice pretty gravel path terminates abruputly to a little trail snaking upwards through some fairly steep rocks. This is more like it.
The landscape in the area is littered with igneous rocks ranging in size from baseball to volkswagon. After looking them for a few minutes, I realize that all of these rocks came flying out of the sky from the volcano that we will be soon climbing. We can't see the peak yet--it's still covered in clouds. Regardless, I would hate to be one of the unfortunate ones that was around when this thing went off.
When I was a kid, I remember being afraid of volanoes from what they told us in class. I never wanted to set foot in Hawaii, because you never know when those things are about to go off! But the reality is, they can detect eruptions weeks in advance now, so we're OK.
The trail continues to vary between rocky embarkments and man-made paths. The trail on a whole is well maintained, even with the occasional porta-john along the way. Once we pass the last porta-john, we start what we think is the real climbing.
At this point, the trail is fairly difficult, causing us to pause every 10 minutes or so to catch our breaths. There are no trees, and very little vegetation, so it feels like we're hiking in the desert. Fortunately it's fairly cool out, and it balances perfectly with the amount of heat we generate from hiking.
About 2.5 hours into the hike, we reach the base of Ngarahoe. We've already ascended a few thousand feet and travelled several kilometers to get to this point, but we have quite a hike ahead of us. We talk to someone who just got down from the mountain, and he says it takes about 2 hours from where we are to hit the peak.
We decide to eat some lunch before continuing. We are surprised with how much altitude we've covered when we see some of our snacks have puffed up from the lower air pressure. I only have a peanut butter sandwich and some random nuts and stuff, but it keeps me satisfied. A brief pow-wow reveals the girls aren't interested in climbing a mountain and they decide to conitnue on the easier trail to go see some lakes that are supposed to be interesting.
After lunch is done, we pack up, and head off into the clouds. The cloud cover is quite close to our position now, and we can see the streams of clouds breaking over the ridge off in the distance. The cover breaks for a moment, and we get our first glimpse of what we're about to tackle. My only impression was, "We're going to climb THAT?!" The slopes of the mountain are quite steep, from our current position it appears there is nothing less than 30-40 degrees or so.
The actual climb turned out to be quite difficult. After we get into the rhythm of the climb, our pace slows considerably to a few steps every minute. The beginning was fairly straightforward, it was easy to find footing on the rocks, but the terrain quickly turns into this soft mix of ash and cobble-stone sized rocks which are extremely difficult to find a firm place to step. Often, we would take a step only to slide back a half-step. It's fairly frustrating, and extremely tiring.
I was surprised with how much the terrain changed over the course of the climb. The colors of the rocks went from gray to red to black and all sorts of variations in between. After about an hour of climbing, we finally break the cloud line and for the first time my life I am peering above the clouds without being in an airplane. The view is spectacular, and we all pause for a few minutes to snap some photos, breathe, and enjoy it.
Luke remembers that we're climbing Mt. Doom and pulls out a bag of rice cakes, offering "Lambas Bread" to anyone who's interested.
Number of "My Precious" and other various Gollum quotes heard on the hike: 15
Breathing is notably less productive as we continue to gain altitude. I'm not gasping for oxygen, but I am definitely having to take more frequent breaks than I would at sea level. Now I understand why pro football teams don't like playing in Denver.
We summit shortly before 3PM. Ngauruhoe's peak lies at about 7,500 feet. Over a mile of vertical climbing. Not bad.
The top of the volcano is actually a huge crater that you can precariously walk around. It's quite intimidating, and it looks like something you don't want to be falling into. We're not alone at the top, there are a handful of other hikers who have made it up as well. We chat briefly with them, meeitng a girl from Sweden and a guy wearing a baseball cap made of straw from California.
We look down and find the aforementioned porta-john on the landscape. It is a tiny dot. We also see the path we walked to the base on--it looks like a thread. We are HIGH.
Enough dilly-dallying at the top, it's time to go down now. We had promised the girls we would meet them at four. Getting off this thing turned out to be quite interesting and fun. It was very hard to step down the slope without falling over. However, noting that the gravel/ash combo tended to slide down pretty easily, we discovered if you plant your feet just right, you slide down at a controlled pace.
One we got the technique down, we essentially surfed the rocks down to the bottom of the mountain. The only catch was that our shoes got filled to the brim with rocks and we had to stop several times to empty them out.
We eventually regroup with the girls and begin our long journey back. My legs are starting to get tired at this point--if I bend over the wrong way, I get cramps in my quads. I rustle through my backpack and find an extra bannana; I remember hearing something about potassium helping that out.
Fortunately, since the walk until this point had all be uphill, the walk back would all be downhill. It goes by much more quickly, and we reach our van around 6PM.
What a day.
Needless to say, we're starving by now, so we go and find a local pizzaria to eat at. Jeff and I split a "prawn pizza". We're suprised when this thing arrives as it has 3 steamed-with-heads-still-atttached prawns just sitting on top of the pizza. Regardless, it was quite tasty and fills the void in my stomach.
We all crash at 10PM from exhaustion. There's much mountain biking to be done tomorrow.
posted by Paul at
5:07 PM
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