Tahurangi

Tongariro NP ● 2 September 2023

Basing ourselves at Ohakune for the weekend, we had an absolutely bluebird day on Saturday to head up Ruapehu. We walked up the skifield to Giant Cafe, then veered off to take the Skyline Ridge to the summit. The great thing about Ruapehu is that you can drive halfway up it, so within four hour we were appreciating stunning views of the summit plateau. We traversed along towards Paretetaitonga, reaching pt 2757 before heading back down. There were a couple of points along this route which required downclimbing some quite steep gullies through rime ice — or walking down and around these ledges, as the sensible among us opted to do.