DAY 54: Mt. Doom and the Emerald Lakes

We were up and at 'em as the sun poked up behind the mountains and we were off for the car park. We could see Mt. Doom (Mount Ngauruhoe) in the distance when we started on the board walk that took us over the marshes. The sun was right in our eyes, and we could barely see anything, but we continued for about an hour or so until we got to this sign.

 Like Boromere says in the Lord of the Rings, apparently one does not simply walk into Mordor. You have to climb a million stairs first.
Grreeaaattt....

So we climbed the stairs. And climbed. And climbed. And climbed. Until finally we were at the base of Mt. Doom. And we found the sign below. To the Department of Conservation-without this sign I never would have known what to do during a volcano eruption, therefore, I thank you for that earth shattering advice.

FUN FACT #22: Mt. Doom is an actual volcano. It last erupted in 1977. We could actually feel the heat of the mountain on the rocks as we climbed.

We finally got to the base of the volcano, and looked around for a trail or some sort of sign of where to start. There wasn't one. A little confused, we followed the foot prints of those before us. Our feet immediately sank in the ash, and every 2 steps up became on sliding step back. This was going to be an interesting hike.

Walking up this thing felt like an almost vertical climb. I have never hiked something this steep before without man-made stairs before. But because of the insane amount of ash, I don't think putting stairs in would even be possible. We finally found a rock out cropping which we starting to climb because the ash was such an impediment to our speed. There were points were I was actually afraid I was going to fall off, during which I got to wondering how in the hell we were going to hike down! But I put that out of my mind and continued about 3 and a half hours up to the top of the mountain.

We reached the edge of the crater without even a sign letting us know we made it. Luckily, it was a fairly clear day, or we probably would have fallen straight in. We concluded that in the States, there would at least have been a fence- scratch that, they would never even let you climb this thing in the States. The clouds came in just as we sat at the top, so we munched and waited for the clouds to dissipate and saw the amazing view of Tongariro National Park.

our ski trail

We were nervous about hiking down- the way up had been kind of dangerous. It didn't take long before we were sliding down the side of the mountain. An then it hit us- why climb, when we can ski? We sunk our feet in and "pizza'd" the entire way down the mountain. We were laughing and sledding down on our butts. Hike up- 3 hr. 30 min. Slide Down- 25 min. I have never had so much fun. Shortly after, we witnessed people hiking up in helmets. Whoopsies...

When we got to the bottom, we sat for a few minutes and poured about a pound of ash out of our boots. A few people came up to us and said that they had sat and watched us slide down the mountain while they ate lunch. We were so brightly colored, we were perfect little dots to watch weaving their way down. You can see in the slides we made in the picture above. 

Once we rested, we set out for the trail to the Emerald Lakes. Supposedly, they were these giant thermal pools (ew, farty) but were insanely beautiful. So we hiked through the flat valley between Mt. Doom and the Lakes and then began the uphill climb. In comparison to what we had just done, this was a cake walk. 

On our way to the Lakes, we passed the "Red Crater" which was this huge crater/cliff-like thing that was bright red. That's me standing next to it- it last erupted in the 1920's.                               FUN FACT #23: Mt. Tongariro (which was just to the left of where we stood at the lakes) erupted in November of 2012. Airports near by had delays and the crossing was closed for a few months. The actually hike up Mt. Tongariro was opened shortly after we made the trip.

Lunch at the Emerald Lakes! 

Red Crater to the Left, Mt. Doom over my shoulder on the Right

When we finished at the lakes, we started our hike back to the car park. We were some of the last people to leave the area, so it was a nice peaceful walk back DOWN the stairs. Once back, I took my first gander at driving on the wrong side of the road. It was surprisingly not that bad! I constantly kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers, but other than that, I wasn't too terrible! Back in Auckland for another week of school.