A Space Odyssey

A Space Odyssey –

My first trek in New Zealand, and only planned for the North Island, was the Tongariro Northern Circuit. There is a better known day-hike section of the circuit called the Tongariro Crossing, dubbed by the Kiwi’s as “The greatest one day hike in the world”. A section of the crossing was recently closed to the public because of a surprise volcanic eruption, but the majority of the trail remained open. The eruption projected car size boulders so far into the air that upon returning to the earth buried themselves 5-10 meters below the surface with the surrounding ground collapsing in on itself… Luckily nobody was injured, but that portion of the track will remain closed the remainder of the hiking season.

Tongariro is the oldest national park in NZ and the only one with any volcanic activity. Starting out the hike in a somewhat familiar and recognizable landscape within a few hours you are teleported to an alien world like stepping through Stargate. The trail circumnavigated a giant cone volcano for most of the hike. It has a few different names, but just about everyone now calls it Mt. Doom referring to the use of this volcano as inspiration for Mordor at the end of Lord Of The Rings. The ground was parched and mostly baron, exaggerated even more so by the recent droughts in the area. There was clear running water over a perfectly rust colored creek bed giving the illusion of an orange flowing liquid. That, along with, rotten egg smelling and turquoise hued, sulfuric acid lakes adding to the surreal alien environment.

Planning on skipping a hut and finishing the 3 day trail in 1.5 days I wasn’t sure at first about the 3 hour side trip to summit Mt. Doom. As I stood at the fork on the trail the memory of the guilt I felt by passing up the popular side trip of Mt. Ossa on the Overland Track came creeping back. I grabbed a water bottle, dropped by backpack behind a rock and made my way too see if I could catch Frodo Baggins trying to dispose of a ring up top. The hike up the volcano was a pain in the arse to say the least. About 15 minutes in you run out of a trail in the traditional sense. You kinda just follow footprints wherever you see them and try making progress up the volcano. The extremely unsure footing made it a “hands on” experience pretty quickly. It’s like walking up hill in beach sand that’s covered by razor sharp lava rocks… For every step forward you slid a half step back. If that weren’t enough you had to worry about tumbling boulders kicked loose by hikers ahead of you. Every few minutes you would hear the precessions of hikers yell ROOOCK, or depending on the nationality AAAATENCION!! At one point all the hikers in my surrounding area watched in fear of a massive, car engine size, rock in the distance tumbling straight for a guy in his decent that appeared to miss him by only a few feet.

Finally making it to the top 1.5 hours later I rested with my back against a thin wall that acted as a fragile barrier to a massive volcanic crater on the other side. Frodo and Samwise Gamgee were nowhere around and I found myself looking around for a giant eagle to take me back down. With no help from a wizard I was forced into making the decent on my own and remembering the close call I saw on the way up I keep a keen ear out for any movement. Every once in a while I would look up to see someone following my path and therefore putting me directly in the line of rock fire. I would traverse across a bit every time making sure I was alone on my route. When I finally made it back down to my backpack at the trailhead I dumped out a cartoon size amount of sand and rocks from each shoe. I was waiting for the anvil to drop out and dove start flying away, but it was only rocks and sand… A lot of it.

Coming upon another crater while on a ridge I had a chain of reaction almost go terribly wrong. While sliding down more loose rock scree I had a banana peel loss of footing. Both hands back to brace my fall and leg kicked overhead like a little Asian breakdancer I got a pretty good cut on my thumb. I got up to dust myself off and decided the cut was deep enough to clean and bandage. I rested my pack in the rocks and tended to my cut. Just before heading back down the hill I had a giant sand fly that wouldn’t leave me alone with a normal swat. As he came in for another swoop I grip my trekking pole like a baseball bat and give a Babe Ruth hack at the little guy. The bottom end of my pole detaches from the base and goes flying about 20 feet. As I’m walking back up the loose lava rock to retrieve half my pole I hear what resembled something sliding down the hill. I turned around to see my backpack was tired of waiting and decided to go on without me. Starting slowly at first then picking up some speed on the way down the hill I couldn’t do anything except watch, watch and hope it didn’t fall down the massive crater. With the zipper still open I saw some items make their escapes before going down with the ship… Oh, there’s my water bottle, there’s my beanie, uh my long johns made a break for it! A few seconds in I reach for my camera, which was comfortable in the safely of my pocket, and decided to film my pack being eaten by a volcano… Just as I turn the camera on and change to film setting, my pack, by the grace of God, makes a gradual turn and follows along the ridge trail instead of plummeting to its demise into the caldera. It comes to a rest about 100 yards down the mountain. I pick up the loose pieces of my bag contents along the way and am happily reunited with my lifeline. Just as I’m thinking the is a good time for a much needed lunch break I see a bright red sign that says- “Volcanic Flying Rock Area next 700 meters. DO NOT STOP”

The trek truly is an otherworldly experience that leaves you feeling like an astronaut explorer on another planet. So while the rover is busy picking up rocks for NASA to test the chemical composition of, if you want to feel what it’s like walking on Mars itself head to Tongariro. Just consider bringing a climbing helmet for falling rocks… And keep your backpack within arms reach at all times.

Bob