Saturday 18 September 2021

Leader: Owen Cox

We held this trip over from the lock-down and rescheduled it at short notice. The long range weather forecast was for poor weather until the weekend, when it looked to be tolerable. In the event, it was better than tolerable; there was virtually no wind, blue sky for much of the day and only cloud above us for the rest.

Twelve of us travelled up at different times on Friday and stayed in different places in National Park. We met up at 7.30 outside the YHA in frosty conditions and drove up to the Mangatepopo car park. Four of the faster walkers ferried three cars around to the other end while the rest of us walked up the valley in the sun. The drivers caught us up at the top of the zig-zag at South Crater. At this point the wide gravel path ended and the snow and ice began.

South Crater had some very firm snow and ice so as soon we hit the slope on the far side of the crater we fixed crampons for the climb over Red Crater. There was some good ice part way along the ridge, heading up.

There were very nice views and the lack of wind made for a leisurely amble over the top and down scoria to Emerald Lakes. We stopped for lunch by the lake at 12.30. We had good snow across to near Blue Lake where we again were glad of our crampons. The sidle from Blue Lake into the saddle below was icy but by now even the first timers had the hang of crampon walking on slopes.

Once we got off the ice and snow we had the two hour walk down another gravelled path to the Ketetahi car park. Enjoy the photos in the album.

Those on the trip were:

David Williams, Jing Zhou, Marcia Goode, Marian Cox, Nisa Promchot, Owen Cox, Peter Davis, Rex Benbrook, Sue Pate, Yingjun Shelton, Kate Duncan, Graham