Brief Album of my Adventures!

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Mt. Ruapehu - Turoa

Even if you don't read the blog check out the video my friend, Bene, made of this adventure:
http://benegrodotzki.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/nz-adventures-episode-4/


I am going to attempt to do the impossible. That impossible task is to describe my day on Aug 20th, 2011. It all began with the alarm going off at 4:30 am. My head popped of the pillow and in my normal fire fighter fashion I was dressed and ready to go skiing in about 5 minutes. Years of experience had me trained to sleep in my base layer and so slipping on a few more layers is quick. That left me a bit eager and not quite thinking straight on account of the insanely early hour. So naturally I did what all people do on a big day where there are going to be a lot of firsts, I made another one, and for the first time I french braided my pig tails. Ha ha what a start. Then I ate a wholesome breakfast of muesli and eggs and set off to wait outside for my 5 am pick up. In all of my excitement and clear lack of mental stability I forgot the huge lunch/dinner I had made the night before, that was the only disappointment of the entire day. I eagerly stood in the middle of the road with my thumb sticking out, basically having no idea who the people were that were picking me up. It sounds sketchy but I met them on Facebook from the alpine club at Massey's Facebook page and I committed to spending an entire day with 4 strangers. After a couple false alarms of people driving home at this crazy hour, my ride finally arrived. So I jumped in the car and the adventure began. First there was Bene, a German dude who I actually have a class with and had met before, then there was Will, from Hong Kong, who I made friends with on Facebook because he had worked at snowbird, and finally Stephen who is a Canadian vet student. Stacey, a vet student from the South Island, joined us later at the resort. We began the about 2 hour drive to Ruapehu. It was super chill, we were all excited and just got to know each other a bit. On our way we stopped in Ohakune to get our rental gear and buy some stuff for lunches and breakfast. Will so graciously lent me a pair of his skis in return for breakfast. So I saved a bit on my gear, $10 for rentals isn't bad at all. Then it was too the volcano! We got onto the long windy road headed up to the resort only to find ourselves at a dead stop. It had been snowing all week (hence the reason I was going skiing) and snow chains or 4WD was a must in this winter wonderland. Unfortunately this skinny road didn't allow a lot of maintenance room so we waited. Finally after about an hour wait we made it to the top just after 9. Its good we set out early because I hear the wait just got worse. We got all ready and I was pumping with excitement. I was about to ski down a volcano! As I looked all around I realized the rumors were true....there wasn't a single tree on this entire mountain. That was a strange site, I felt like the mountain was a bit naked, almost as if it would be rude to look at it in its exploited state. Trees or not, I was ready to conquer this mountain. As we road of the chair lift, the realization of this beautiful place set in. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The sun was out in full force as we sat above the few clouds there were and you could see for miles, probably hundreds of miles. If you looked to the west along the horizon was completely flat except for the large protrusion of the next closest volcano, Mount Egmont, over 80 miles away and to the North about 40 miles was Lake Taupo. The view was spectacular. Like nothing I have seen, since the mountains here are formed by volcanoes there are no surrounding mountains to block the view. I felt like I could see almost the entire North Island. It was so distracting while I was skiing the view took my breath away. The snow….well it wasn't Utah. It has snowed all the beginning of the week but the bare open face of this large cone of a mountain was victim to island winds. As you can see in the photos, the snow was had basically all been turned to ice formations. The groomed areas offered some comfort but not much challenge so we often ventured into the textured slopes. While annoying to ski on, the snow formations were quite beautiful and I felt a little bad destroying the perfectly symmetrical daggers that pointed down the mountain. As we skied we took hundreds of photos and each took turns wearing the helmet cam supplied by Bene. With such gorgeous weather and breath taking views you couldn't help but snap a few extra shots. We really lucked out as it was the nicest day of weather they have had all season. It really worked out well that we were all good skiers; I was the only one without some sort of official credentials testify to my ability so I am glad they took my word for it when I said I could keep up where ever they went. The skis I were on were a little short but I took a break from them and demoed some brand new Fischer skis that were the proper length, that was a good time. We took a short break for lunch on a balcony overlooking basically the entire West coast. I wish cameras could really capture the beauty and magnitude of this place.

After lunch we got talking about how cool it would be to plan a little trip to hike to the top of the volcano to see the Crater lake and the view. A couple chair rides later we got the crazy idea of doing it now. So we planned to meet at the top of the mountain right before the chair lifts closed. This had already been one of those days I never wanted to end and now I knew was just about to get even better. I had already felt like I had gotten what I had paid for as far as a full ski day, so anything else was icing on the cake. But had I known what I was about to do, I would have made a bigger cake, because there was a lot of icing…..So we lost a few comrades, Stacey and Stephan, as we went to begin our accent to the summit at 3:50 pm. We approximated it to be 400-500 m straight up a rather steep incline as the volcano get steeper near the top. We started off at a fast pace with our skis on our backs and only an hour and half to make it to the top because the sun was setting at 5:30. Bene and I continued at this pace for about 100 m that took about half an hour, too long. We seemed to have lost Will along the way. He was going skiing the next day as well so he decided to stop and rest his legs and let us continue on ward. And oh did we go. Bene and I were both so excited and much more experienced with higher elevation hiking and climbing, so we ditched out skis and went as fast as our legs would take us. We covered the next 350 m or so in 45 minutes while stopped to take more photos along the way. We finally reached the summit at 5:15pm. It was like standing on the top of the world. If I peeled my eyes just enough I could have sworn I could see both sides of the ocean. Then right below us was the crater of the volcano filled with water. I have never enjoyed the rotten egg smell of sulfur so much in my life. The sun was just starting to reach the horizon as it set over the lake. Words and even photos could capture this moment. I didn't want to leave, I almost made Bene drag me off the mountain. I'm running out of adjectives to describe the beauty of this moment. It was 360 degree view of majestic land, lakes, and lone volcanoes. It was dead silent as we stood at the tallest point on the North Island. Literally the top of the edge of the world. We took about 5 minutes to take photos and soak it all in, but we knew that our time limited before we would be skiing down in the dark. So we headed back down the ridge and then boot skied and jumped down the mountain. Parts where it wasn't packed enough to boot ski, you would have to run and jump. Every step you took your foot broke through the hard crusty windblown surface as had your brought it back up your shins screamed a little as they banged against the icy surface. As we finally got back to our skis the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon. I cleaned out my snow filled boots, strapped back on my stubby skis and pointed them down the mountain. Skiing from top to bottom was still quite a distance so as we skied the sun was perfectly setting right in our view. With each turn you could see the sun sneak further toward the western hemisphere. The resort was completely empty and dead silent. We took our time as it would be a really inconvenient time to do something stupid and get hurt and well I didn't mind soaking up the sights for a bit longer. Right when we reached the bottom of the ski field the sun disappeared. By this time I was on such a high I felt like I was still on top of the mountain. Had there been powder on a day like today I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven because that might just be as close as you could get. It all felt so surreal. It pained me a little to leave after such a great day. I want to go back but at the same time I don't think any day could ever be as good as this day, so I'll let it be a memory in my life as one of the most incredible days ever.


Here are some photos attempting to show the radiance of New Zealand and Mt. Ruapehu and a link to the video my friend Bene made to show our adventure is above. The video is really great, I'm going to try and get a copy to put directly on my blog. The pictures are a combination of all of our photos, so I can't take credit for all of them.