Mount Ruapehu: When Life Gives You (Great, Big, Snow-capped) Lemons

Posted by Ed on January 30, 2020

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Please note: this is a very long blog post. If we were to compare a traditional narrative to a sandwich, where a modest introduction and conclusion – i.e. two slices of bread – sit either side of the meaty, delicious interior, then this post falls short.

It’s more like a fancy ‘sandwich’ you might get at a gastro-pub, where the bread is a good inch thick and dominates the meal. Although the actual fillings are tasty enough in a tangy sort of way, they’re in relatively short supply.

What I’m trying to say is, this post is not so much about my recent summit of Ruapehu as it is about the circumstances that led to the day unfolding the way it did, and how I felt in the wake of it. Does that make sense?

I wish I’d never mentioned the sandwich.

Anyway, enjoy.

There’s an idea that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past few months. The idea is that you should pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

In other words, in good times and in bad, when a beautiful thing happens to cross your path, rather than resenting its transience or the fact that it’s not the right kind of beautiful thing, you should take a moment to appreciate that something beautiful is happening at all.

Readers who know where this particular expression comes from, will know where it comes from – I’m not going to open up the can of worms about the merits of my source. Personally, I’ve found this particular meditation on suffering, limitation, and the nature of beauty to be very useful, and I thought about it a great deal recently in Tongariro National Park.

For the uninitiated, Tongariro National Park is located in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island, just south of Lake Taupo, the country’s largest lake. The park’s volcanic, semi-Martian landscape is dominated by three peaks – Tongariro (the smallest), Ruapehu, (the highest – and the highest peak in the North Island), and the imposing pile of ash that is Ngauruhoe (Na-rah-hoe-ee), technically a secondary cone of Tongariro which, with the aid of CGI, played Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings.

The road to Ruapehu was a long one. Back in August, I posted to the Wild Things trail running Facebook group, hoping to organise a group run on the 45km Tongariro Northern Circuit later that summer.

As is so often the case for me, this post was made in the midst of a few particularly dark days, feeling trapped and sorry for myself. It was an attempt to create my own light at the end of the tunnel, and remarkably, it worked.

Within a few days, I received over fifty enthusiastic responses from runners around the country. Less ‘group run’ and more ‘stampede’, this number was thankfully whittled down over the following weeks and months, resulting in a more modest, but healthy nonetheless, nine runners who could commit to a weekend in mid-January 2020. Five Aucklanders, one runner from the Kapiti Coast, and, remarkably, three runners local to the area (notable simply because so few people live near the park.)

As mentioned, the plan was to run the 45km Tongariro Northern Circuit, which starts and finishes at Whakapapa, New Zealand’s highest settlement by some margin. Circumnavigating the northern half of the Tongariro volcanic complex, the route takes in some of the most remarkable landscapes to be found anywhere in New Zealand, if not the world, and includes in its middle section the world-famous, hugely popular Tongariro Alpine Crossing day walk.

As the date drew nearer and travel and accommodation plans were put in place, the ‘Tongariro Massive’ Facebook chat buzzed as nine perfect strangers, united by a common madness, looked forward to a long day out on the trails. A week out, the weather looked to be absolutely perfect, with virtually no wind and temperatures hovering in the mid to low teens.

In the wake of my memorable but ultimately bittersweet experience on Taranaki, I was hopeful for a perfect day. But clouds of a very different kind were on the way.

The first thing that happened was that I got ill.

This never happens. I’m one of those infuriating people who get ill once a year, like clockwork. Usually in November, so I guess being in the Southern Hemisphere this year has knocked my system out of whack. That and spending a couple of hours in 80kph winds up the side of a mountain, perhaps.

Waking up on Tuesday morning, four days out from the run, I had a sore throat and a blocked nose which, whilst uncomfortable, I felt I could run through with no issues. In fact, exercising in the mountain air would probably help. But on Friday, the day we were due to head down to Whakapapa, I awoke with a splitting headache that I was less confident about running through.

I spent much of the day in bed feeling like a nail was slowly being driven into a spot just behind my left temple. It was uncomfortable and extremely frustrating to think that after all this time I would be sidelined from this experience, one I had been dreaming about for weeks at my desk job, by a case of man flu. In the end, not wanting to be a liability, I begrudgingly let the group chat know of my situation, and that it might be a weekend of cocoa and blankets for me.

Cue ‘cat on the street encounter, number one.’

At 2pm, one of our party, Jonathan, picked me up from my flat to begin the long drive down south. Joining us in the car was Jess, a Strava friend of his who he had conversed with online for years but only met that day. Like any sane runner, she had gotten wind of our plans to run further than a marathon over harsh volcanic terrain and, four days out, asked if she could join us. I liked her already.

This being the first time any of us had actually met, we passed much of the driver with the usual runners’ chat about race etiquette, shoe preferences, and the kind of thinly-veiled attempts to discern each other’s position in the pack that runners come to perfect. As the hours rolled by, was reminded of just how much I enjoy the company of runners, particularly trail runners, who so often are slightly out of step with the world, and have found solace in a sport which celebrates eccentricity.

Quite miraculously, my throbbing headache also began to clear. Perhaps it was a result of the momentum finally gathering, as our long since planned excursion was finally becoming a reality. Or perhaps it was the placebo effect. Regardless, I was definitely feeling better, and as the crinkled Kiwi landscape rolled by, not a cloud in the sky, I began to tentatively open up to the possibility that this weekend really could be a perfect one.

Unfortunately, though, the universe had other ideas. The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, and all that…

My phone buzzed as one of our number contributed to the Facebook group chat.

Bugger.

As I mentioned, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a popular day-walk that traverses the middle section of the complete Tongariro Northern Circuit, taking in some of the higher landscapes. It’s immensely popular – when I completed it back in February, there were literal queues coming down the mountainside, and I saw dozens of tourists ill-equipped for the changeable mountain weather. Each year, despite the walk itself being fairly achievable for most, one or two people die on the Crossing precisely because they are not prepared for the severe conditions that can occur on the mountain.

As it turned out, the tourist who died as we were driving down to Tongariro was not foolish. Details later emerged that 75-year-old German tourist Gerd Wilde had passed away moments after rightly exclaiming how beautiful the landscape was. Diagnosed with prostate cancer, he was on a bucket list round-the-world-trip with his son and was smiling for the camera just minutes before he died. He undertook the hike in near-perfect conditions. As far as deaths go, I’m not sure you could ask for a better one. (Link to a Stuff article on Wilde here.)

As is the custom in Māori culture, a rāhui was imposed upon the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. A rāhui is a form of tapu, a traditional Polynesian concept denoting holiness or sacredness which, interestingly enough, is the origin of the English word ‘taboo’. In particular, a rāhui involves restricting access to an area out of respect for the dead, and this instance the Tongariro Crossing was not to see footfall for three days following Wilde’s passing.

This revelation left the group somewhat divided. Given that the Tongariro Alpine Crossing was slap-bang in the middle of our planned Northern Circuit, a ban on crossing it left us at a loose end. Technically, a rāhui has no official legal standing, but it’s generally observed by members of the public out of respect for tradition and in recognition of Māori people’s spiritual ties to the land in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The majority of runners quickly made peace with the fact that we would not be running the Tongariro Northern Circuit the next day, and I must admit I got a little frustrated, momentarily and in private. After failing to get up Taranaki a week prior, I had been so looking forward to the satisfaction of completing one of New Zealand’s Great Walks in a single day. As a non-Kiwi, the concept of a rāhui meant little to me, and I confess I found it annoying that one man’s death could throw months of planning out of the window.

Of course, I quickly had to abandon that way of thinking. A person had died and here I was lamenting the fact that I wouldn’t be able to do the run I wanted to, rather than celebrating the fact that I was able to run at all. I strove immediately to show a little more gratitude, and face the problem with perspective – we were lucky to be there, regardless of what we ended up doing. This was a setback, but not the end of the world.

We convened at the home of Orla, Whakapapa’s token Irishwoman. Slightly thrown off by the fact that this was the first time most of us had actually met, we debated our options.

Initially, three distinct camps formed – Jonny and Kareem were keen to complete an out-and-back on the Round the Mountain Track, otherwise known as leg one of the Ring of Fire ultramarathon. This would work out at about 45km, the same as the Tongariro Northern Circuit, but with significantly more elevation over technical terrain.

A second group, which comprised most of the other runners, were proposing a handful of routes which could be linked together to make up the distance, all of which sounded like great runs, but lacked the satisfactory oomph of an official route like the Tongariro Northern Circuit.

The third, smallest group, which included me, were not yet convinced that running the Tongariro Northern Circuit was impossible. Given the rāhui’s lack of enforceability and the fact that the Northern Circuit does not intersect with the start or finish of the Alpine Crossing, where officials would be in place to deter would-be trampers, we figured that we could quietly and respectfully complete the run without disturbing anyone.

This was, for me, very much a case of ‘now or never’. Given that I would be leaving New Zealand in a few weeks, I was not yet ready to accept that my long-awaited run should be called off for the sake of cultural respect.

But, all the same, a thought nagged at the back of my mind.

Would I want to tell people about it? Would I want people to know that I had knowingly breached the rāhui, all so I could have my special experience? Would I be able to look back in months, or years, and think, ‘I did the right thing’?

I wasn’t so sure.

Thankfully, this impasse was resolved by Jonathan’s suggestion of a Ruapehu summit. As mentioned, conditions were nigh-on perfect, and at around 2700m, the summit was sure to offer spectacular views over the entire North Island (or, at least, the summit we could reach from Whakapapa – being a volcano, Ruapehu’s crater rim has multiple peaks, the highest of which, at 2797m, is reachable only from the eastern side of the mountain, opposite Whakapapa.)

Almost as soon as Jonathan suggested it, a consensus was reached that summiting Ruapehu was a decent enough substitution for the run we had planned. Whilst it would less of an all-out jog and more of a hike, it had all the allure of being a ‘proper’ route rather than something we had strung together.

Jonny and Kareem were still keen to tackle their Ring of Fire route, alongside Shaun who was absent from the meeting but joining us the next morning. In order to ensure we all got to run together at least briefly, we agreed to start our day at the trailhead of the Whakapapaiti Track in the village.

This track winds its way up the mountain, before splitting off in two directions – head left, and you begin the climb up to the ski field and the summit of Ruapehu (marked green on map below); head right, and you join the Round the Mountain track (marked red.)

Situation resolved, the group disbanded, and the five of us staying at the Christiana Ski Lodge made our way up Bruce Road. After reaching the Sky Waka gondola, we had a sharp 5-minute hike/scramble through the volcanic rocks to reach the lodge, which turned out to be a cosy slice of heaven. Sure, it was basic, but at just $25 a night and with views like this, who’s complaining?

We set about heating or assembling our all-important pre-run dinners: I had opted for my usual pre-race meal, a couple of slices of pizza. In this instance, it was homemade and cold, which in a strange sort of way can sometimes be the best way to experience pizza.

We chatted for some time about all kinds of things. As mentioned, I really love spending time with fellow trail runners. Our group had all sorts: Gary, a seasoned veteran of the sport, who told us many great tales of his exploits and mishaps out on the Tararuas; Scott, a wonderfully enthusiastic gent who was new to trail running and had the GoPro to prove it; Jonny, a springy, fast-talking fellow who was training for the Northburn 100k; and Kareem, who was just getting back into running after 6 months in Europe, and who originally hailed from the same corner of Northwest London as me.

After sharing stories and getting to know each other, we headed to bed at around 9PM in anticipation of our 4:30AM alarms. I shared a room with Gary, who made for a wonderful roommate insofar as he didn’t pass wind, burp, snore, or sleeptalk once. Or, if he did, I didn’t notice. The crafty devil.

The Run

If you’re still with me, congratulations! We’re a couple of thousand words into this baby and I’ve only just got to the start of the actual run. What can I say? I have a lot of thoughts.

We awoke before sunrise and, after some bleary-eyed coffee and a stunning drive down Bruce Road, we joined the rest of the group at the trailhead of the Whakapapaiti Track down in the village.

Alongside the Christiana Ski Lodge contingent, the group included Jonathan and Jess, with whom I had driven down from Auckland, Orla, a Whakapapa local, and her friend Megan, who lived on the other side of the mountain, and Shaun, another local who was looking forward to sharing his home trails with some new pals.

After a couple of pre-run photos, I offered a few half-mumbled words of gratitude. Somehow, through the magic of the internet, ten like-minded strangers had come together from around the country to share in this adventure. Sure, with the rāhui in place it wasn’t going to be what we thought it was – but as we stood there in the early morning and prepared for the day to come, that didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was that we were going to have an adventure together.

We set off shortly after 6AM and quickly split into a few groups. Jonny led the way, poles-in-hand, hopping over the technical terrain like it was nothing. Myself and Jonathan followed, and quickly found ourselves prancing and skipping through a lovely section of singletrack. Until, that is…

Ouch!

Barely 1km in, I trod on a root and felt my right ankle roll out from underneath me. Given that I was wearing my squishiest Speedgoat 3s, which have a stack height of approximately four feet, it actually hurt quite bad, and I was forced to walk for a moment to assess the damage.

I urged the other two to go on ahead, and for a few seconds I began to think that my day was done before it had even gotten started. But after a while, stretching it this way and that, my ankle began to feel better, and before I knew it I had caught up to Jonny and Jonathan and we were rolling again.

After overcoming the initial enthusiastic urgency with which we had attacked the first few kilometres, we slowed to a more reasonable jog as the forest gave way to a stunning tussock-strewn landscape, and Mount Ruapehu loomed in the distance. The first hints of sunrise were peeping over its flank, and I experienced one of those transcendent moments that are so often only the stuff of legend and other people’s Instagrams.

Here I was, far away from all the stresses of work and rent and savings and supermarket shopping, running, my body strong, my mind fresh, through this stunning landscape, the world barely awake around me. I felt deep, deep gratitude – this was no encounter with a cat on the street. This was a glimpse of God, if you like, or the universe. Call it what you want. It was reality, so rarely seen, untainted by perception, and even as I was experiencing it I knew it wouldn’t last. So I tried my best to just be there. It was glorious, and I don’t care how ridiculous I sound right now.

After snaking our way along this plateau, we came to a river crossing which required full dunkage to pass. Or at least, we thought this to be the case – as we picked our way across through the ice-cold mountain water, Shaun, the local runner, caught up to us and hopped across some conveniently placed rocks a couple of metres downstream. Kareem was with him too, and the five of us made our way from the river up to the first checkpoint on our route, the Whakapapaiti Hut.

The hut stood near enough the point where our two groups would part ways, with Shaun, Kareem, and Jonny planning on attacking the Round the Mountain Track whilst the rest of us attempted to summit Ruapehu. As we waited for the rest of the group, some rather surprised looking trampers emerged from the hut, cleaning their teeth or chomping down on bowls of cereal. We bid them good morning and did our best to look like this was no big deal, just a regular Saturday morning jaunt.

Once we had all reassembled, rehydrated, and snacked, we said farewell to our Round-the-Mountain compatriots and headed off on our way. After momentarily leading the group off course (note to self: look ahead, not at the ground), we climbed a dramatic series of switchbacks that led to a stunning lookout point of the Tongariro volcanic complex. Well, some of us did – myself and Jonathan opted to craft a new, direct route up the slope.

Picking our way back down the other side of the slope, we crossed a long plateau that was covered in boulders and tussock, the only clue to the Whakapapaiti Track’s direction being the orange flagpoles spaced every hundred metres or so apart.

Jonathan and I let it rip somewhat on this flatter, less technical section, and we soon found ourselves back on Bruce Road, which we then climbed for a few relentless kilometres before reaching the Sky Waka and skifield I had left that very morning.

As we waited for the others, Scott, Jonathan, and myself popped back into the Christiana Ski Lodge, refilling our water bottles and grabbing some extra food (I had stowed a cinnamon swirl in the fridge that I took a few chunks out of as we gathered ourselves.) A tramper staying in the lodge seemed somewhat baffled when he found out we had already run around 10k – it was still only around 8AM, after all. When I told him we were now going to summit Ruapehu, he was even more surprised. Runners, eh?

We set off down the slope and reconvened with Gary, Orla, Jess, and Megan, beginning the long climb up the mountain. Some trampers had already gotten started, electing (like us) to not spend the $45 it would cost them to purchase a return ticket on the gondola, and complete the climb entirely on foot.

The trek up to the top of the Sky Waka was fairly straightforward, and after passing a couple of waterfalls and large patches of snowfall, we found ourselves in the upper terminal at 2020m. It felt a little surreal, after three hours or so of mountain solitude, to suddenly be surrounded by tourists, in a gift shop, on the side of an active volcano. I guess that’s New Zealand for you. After refilling our bottles and a brief sit down, we began the climb proper.

From the top of the Sky Waka it’s not immediately clear which direction you are supposed to take to reach the summit. The reasons for this, I suspect, are two-fold: firstly, as I mentioned before, Ruapehu technically has multiple summits, and depending on how high you want to go, you have to choose your direction of travel quite early on after leaving the terminal.

Secondly, there is no waymarked track to the top beyond a certain point. With the terrain being so rough underfoot, and altitude being a potential problem, I imagine the folks in charge of such things, whilst not wanting to deter any would-be hikers, would also not want to encourage anyone not prepared to reach the summit to try and do so.

So, not quite sure of ourselves but trusting in the principle that if you’re going up, you’re probably going in the right direction, we followed the Skyline Track up the mountain. Shortly after leaving the last of the chairlift support poles behind, we reached a dramatic, Star Wars-esque rock formation, and had a nosey around.

The views were becoming more and more stunning by the minute, but a quick glance up the slope revealed we still had a very long way to go – and now, we were skiing off-piste. A faintly visible series of switchbacks crawled up the mountainside, and as we ascended I was reminded of my recent experience on Taranaki, picking my way up similar terrain but in howling wind and fog. Today, on Ruapehu, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the gentlest of breezes was in the air. I reminded myself, once more, to pet this damn cat.

The going soon got tough, and myself, Jonathan, and Scott were quickly scrambling over rocks and asking each other, ‘Are we sure this is the right way?’ A couple of other trampers were leapfrogging us, though, so we stuck with it, continuing to climb as the air grew noticeably thinner. My watch altimeter crawled above 2400m, then 2500m, and after much huffing and puffing the ridge of the crater yawned into view.

We pushed on for a few more minutes (or hours), and before long there was no more trail to climb. Just us, the sky, and the enormity of Ruapehu’s crater.

A good spot, I think you’ll agree, for a Clif bar.

After hanging around at a pseudo-summit for a while, curiosity got the better of Scott and he followed a minor dip on the rim to reach a more aesthetically attractive peak. Hesitantly, we followed suit – by now, the ankle I had rolled earlier was giving me a bit of grief, and I knew that descending was going to be uncomfortable. But you can’t climb all the way only to ‘sort of’ summit Ruapehu!

Orla, Megan, and Gary soon joined us – Jess having decided to call it a day at the rock formation – and we all shared a few minutes at the summit taking it all in. From way up there, on the roof of the North Island, it felt hard to argue that the Tongariro Northern Circuit could have offered us anything much more spectacular than the views we were currently being treated to.

Eventually, spirits high and legs somewhat dead, we began the descent, and my aforementioned buggered ankle did its best to remind me what a tit I was. Having been the first one up the mountain, I was now going to be the last one down it – in fact, our positions had more or less reversed, as Orla and Gary demonstrated exactly what it means to be an efficient downhill runner.

On the way down, we soon realised why the climb up had felt so unorthodox – Jonathan, Scott, and I had managed to ascend a ridge that was a good few metres to the left of the actual trail.

We decided to name the ridge after ourselves, having so boldly conquered it in a brazen display of courage. But we descended the normal way nonetheless.

After a rather uncomfortable few hours thanks to my ankle (and, I must admit, a few stray F-bombs), we made it back to the Sky Waka terminal, where Orla, Megan, and I decided to call it quits. My legs still felt surprisingly fresh, and psychologically I would’ve been more than happy to continue the descent right back down to Whakapapa, my ankle was having none of it.

Not wanting to end up in a helicopter or a foot-cast, I swallowed my pride and enjoyed a fabulously overpriced cappuccino with Orla and Megan at the gondola cafe. Orla then did her best to sweet-talk the cashier into giving us a good deal on the Sky Waka (my hobbling around swayed her heart not), but in the end, it was no use, and we each purchased an eye-wateringly expensive single ticket to get us safely back down the mountain.

The Aftermath

After reconvening at Orla’s house we awaited the return of the Round the Mountain contingent, before heading off to the pub to consume medically inadvisable quantities of chips. We shared stories from the day, and from other adventures, and basked in the warm glow of our achievement. We had climbed the highest mountain in the North Island – in shorts!

Of the Round the Mountain crew, Kareem, in particular, had had quite the adventure. Around the halfway point of his run with Jonny and Shaun, his shoes – which were, shall we say, very worn – burst open, and he was forced to cover the remaining 20+km of volcanic, technical trail in shoes that offered about the same levels of protection as a pair of Crocs.

But climbing mountains brings with a certain degree of fatigue, and soon myself, Kareem, Scott, and Jonny – incidentally, the four youngest runners – all found our eyelids drooping and our concentration lapsing. We said our goodbyes to those we would not see again and headed back up to the lodge.

The next morning, during breakfast with Jonathan and Jess in the magnificent Chateau Tongariro Hotel, I burnt a croissant on the automated toaster. After dealing with it by pretending it wasn’t me, we did our best to get our money’s worth at the all-you-can-eat buffet before the long drive back to Auckland.

Mostly, I was tired. But I was also really amazed and pleased with how the day had turned out. At so many moments, it had seemed like the adventure I had been longing for was not going to happen, but what ended up unfolding was exactly the kind of spontaneous, ‘why the heck not?’ day out that I really needed.

I found myself reflecting upon comments I had heard circulating the Aotearoa trail running community a few weeks prior, when the infamous Kepler Challenge had to be rerouted due to relentless rain. With the new route in place, runners had felt like the pressure was off to PB or meet some arbitrary time standard they had set for themselves. Instead, they enjoyed a big day out in the mountains, high-fiving each other as they passed on the out-and-backs, and running free from any concerns about results.

In a way, that’s what our day out on Ruapehu felt like. Not that we were ever planning to race the Tongariro Northern Circuit. But by being forced to reconsider our options and pull a new adventure more or less out of a hat, I feel like we ended up with our faces far closer to the surface of the experience. It was fresher, and more invigorating, than it may otherwise have been, precisely because it felt like we had managed to pull it off despite what fate had otherwise planned for us.

I wish had some profound closing comment to bring this ridiculously long blog post to an end, but I don’t. All I know it, there are many, many more adventures to come, and whilst not all of them will involve summiting 9000-foot mountains, I hope they will all have in them even a smidgen of the spontaneity and fun that I had on Ruapehu that day.

Here’s to running buddies, new and old.

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