Up into the volcano!

Well, today we could wait no longer, the weather was still not good, but our plane is leaving soon and we still have stuff to do, so we decided to toughen up and get to business: The Tongariro Alpine Crossing, considered the best one day hike in New Zealand. The route takes you up to a pass between two volcanos, one of them Mount Tongariro itself, and through several craters to go down on the other side of the mountain.

Mount Tongariro is famous because it was filmed in the Lord of the Rings film as Mount Doom, the place where all evil lies and where the actual story unfolds its final surprise.

We had decided to aim for a fast climb and if time and weather permitted, attempt to turn left at the Pass saddle and climb to the actual summit of the volcano. It seemed doable, specially if we hurried.

The day came out very cloudy and rainy and as we approached the track start, we realized, we were going to do the whole climb inside clouds. It was going to be a pity, to spend so much effort and see nothing. Still, the epic of the trip required us to get there, so we started climbing fast and were in the saddle one hour ahead of the normal schedule. The clouds engulfed us from the beginning and as we got to the saddle, the wind started.

We had been warned about the wind at the top. it seems it makes a vortex and reaches speeds of more than 50 km/h, so it seemed pretty dangerous to stay there. Still, as we had time, we decided to push for the top of Tongariro, left the normal path and attacked the summit following a long series of marking poles, because the terrain was too active to have a real path.

Those were difficult moments, Josele and me climbing in very dense fog, seeing just one pole ahead of us and rain and wind hitting us from the side. We were drenched very soon and saw many groups turning back. There was nothing to see, so why bother?

But we had not gone through 1100 kms on the bike to turn back that easy, so we endured and finally, after less than an hour of climb from thew saddle, at around 11 am, we got to Mount Doom!

The weather there was awful, so we stayed there very little time, took some photos and completed Frodo's quest.

As we were going down, we realized the weather was getting slightly better, the wind was less strong, it stopped raining and there was more light, so when we got to the saddle, we decided to wait a little before pushing down to see if the clouds would move away and let us see all these volcanos around us.

And it did.

And again, this country is freaking amazing. We were in the middle of the moon, looking down into the gates to hell. It was truly the best day hike I have ever done.

Tonight we are sleeping in Rotorua, a center of Maori culture, but as we are one day late, we will not have the time to make any kind of visit. We are very, very busy tomorrow, you'll see!