Giveaways
This post was updated on 14 April 2023.
LESS PROMINENT than nearby Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe, Mount Tongariro nonetheless lends its name to the Tongariro National Park that encompasses all three. Mount Tongariro has a series of spread-out slopes and craters, which the one-day Tongariro Alpine Crossing and the three-to-four-day Tongariro Northern Circuit, one of New Zealand’s Great Walks, both traverse.
You can download a PDF brochure on the Tongariro trails from the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC), on this link. I’ve reproduced the main map from the brochure below, up-to-date as of my April 2023 revision of this post. Make sure to download the latest if you are going there, and get a better map for actual navigation as the DOC one is for information only.
The wider Tongariro area, including Mounts Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu, was the first national park created in New Zealand, when the powerful Ngāti Tūwharetoa iwi, or tribe, aligned their fortunes with the Crown and began to open up their lands for tourism in 1887. It is now one of a limited number of World Heritage Sites of joint natural and cultural significance.
When I first tramped Tongariro in 2011, I did the full Northern Circuit, and it was beautiful.
Starting at Whakapapa Village, we tramped eight and a half kilometres across the plains underneath the famous Mount Ngauruhoe, which some film buffs might recognise as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
We stopped at Mangatepopo Hut at the entrance of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which we joined the following day, and hiked through to Oturere Hut, a five-hour walk of almost thirteen kilometres.
We thought that we would make the most of our time in the national park and headed northward to tramp the start of the section of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing that branches off from the Northern Circuit, before returning to complete the circuit.
We tramped up over the central crater of Tongariro, where the snow was quite deep, passing the beautiful Emerald Lakes and the Blue Lake. The Blue Lake is sacred or tapu to Māori, and thus subject to restrictions on what you can do in the immediate area.
I soon learned that hiking with crampons becomes easier if you follow in the footsteps of the person in front of you. The walk had steep drops, and we had to self-arrest with our ice-axes several times to stop ourselves falling down them, so I was thankful we’d learnt how to do it properly on the snowcraft course.
(It is officially recommended that people without such alpine skills should not attempt the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, nor the Northern Circuit, in the more wintery months between early May and late October. The same goes for all of New Zealand’s Great Walks. They are only ‘walks’ in season.)
From Oturere, it was a three-hour walk to Waihohonu Hut, before the final stretch on the Northern Circuit: a hike of just over fourteen kilometres through the Tama Saddle between Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu to return to our starting point at Whakapapa Village.
In 2016, I did the full Tongariro Alpine Crossing in less snowy conditions with a friend I’d made in India named Yaqoob. Here are a couple of collages I made a few years ago, with one photo from 2011 and the rest, I think, from 2016.
Though there was less snow, it was still pretty cold the second time I was on the crossing. Even so, the tramp to a hut that stood, in those days, halfway between the Emerald Lakes and the Ketetahi road-end was well worth it, with magnificent views of Lake Rotoaira, Mount Pihanga, and even the distant Lake Taupō. This hut, which no longer exists, was called Ketetahi Hut.
Ketetahi Hut was damaged in 2012 when a crater called Te Maari blew. There are some spectacular photos of the damage inflicted by massive flying rocks from the crater, like cannonballs or artillery shells, here. The photos include one of a hole punched in the hut’s roof and one of a crater made by an even bigger boulder outside.
Ketetahi Hut was downgraded to a shelter for a time. But, as you can see from the fine print in the last photo above, it was removed in March 2019. DOC figured that this locality was not somewhere you should be encouraged to spend the night.
I was again in the Tongariro area when Te Maari exploded, about to climb Mount Tongariro. There’s a sign about the eruption now.
I re-did the crossing in April 2023, when I got the photo of the Te Maari sign. Here are more photos and some video footage from my 2023 crossing.
The following sign describes the cultural significance of the area, one of the two reasons it is a World Heritage Site.
Here is a sign describing the geological history of the area, below an outcrop called Pukekaikiore, meaning ‘eat rats hill’.
Here is a photo of one of the flat-bottomed valleys or craters, the flat bottom made by a lava lake that cooled.
The next picture shows the conical volcano Mount Ngauruhoe, which continually grumbles and steams and occasionally generates sizable eruptions, behind some more of that flat-bottomed terrain.
The next photo shows the famous Red Crater behind some yellow dirt. Things are quite colourful up here.
Here’s another photo of the Red Crater.
The next photo shows people hiking toward the Blue Lake, which contains relatively pure water.
On the other hand, the Emerald Lakes, shown in the next photo, contain chemical concoctions of varying colours.
At last, I am only 3.1 kilometres from the carpark.
Here is a video I made, of crossing scenes and a stream just before the Ketetahi Carpark.
As some of the signs above warn, the volcanic mountains in the Tongariro National Park are still active. So, in addition to the usual hazards you have when tramping in mountainous areas, there’s also the added risk of volcanic activity. As such, DOC recommends that all trampers intending to trek the crossing should check in on the current volcanic alert level of the mountains at one of their offices, or online, before setting out.
A booking system is being introduced from July 2023, and there is a proposal to limit daily numbers on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing to 800 daily. On the busiest days of the year, in the past, there have been about 2,000.
The Alpine Crossing now has steps in places, making it easier than in the past but less adventurous.
On my most recent visit, I stayed at Pipers Lodge in a village called National Park, a little off the map at the start of this post (an arrow points to it along State Highway 47). The name of the village reflects the fact that Tongariro was the first national park to be proclaimed in New Zealand. National Park has a surprisingly large number of ski lodges and hotels for such a small place. There is also a freedom camping spot if you want to stay there as cheaply as possible.
The village has a railway station where the Northern Explorer excursion train makes regular stops. Right next to the railway station is a park-and-ride facility from which you can catch a shuttle to and from the two ends of the Alpine Crossing for about $45 from the park-and-ride or about $55 from your hotel.
The railway station café has been closed for about four years. While I was there, about thirty people rocked up. I heard that it’s owned by a guy who doesn’t know how to make money from cafés. Though having said that, there hasn’t been much snow for three years along with Covid, and many liquidations and bankruptcies are happening locally.
There’s a push to try and diversify out of the skier market, which used to be the mainstay of the village, and to support other forms of outdoor recreation that have become more popular of late, including hiking and mountain biking on the local trails.
To conclude, I love the grasses and the smell of nature on Tongariro when you first start out — and I don’t mind the weather!
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