After Mom continually worrying that she wouldn't be able to do the crossing this week, she finally got to do it. Yay! And she thought it was the most awesome thing ever. Which I won't argue with. No Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom) summit this time around....take a look at the pics and you'll think we're crazy just to have even completed it in the winter. It was definitely very very different than completing the crossing in the summer. The snow in most places was, I would guess, at least 5 feet high, so the Devil's Staircase at the beginning of the track was less stairs, more snow covered incline. We were so so so so lucky to have absolutely BEAUTIFUL weather today. Not like on Tuesday when we originally supposed to when it rained all day. It was so clear out today that we could even see Mt Taranaki to the west. which is about 120 miles away. We almost had to turn back because our trusty guides thought it would be too icy to continue...but we persevered! And made it all the way to the end, in about 8 hours. Apparently the record time for completing all 19.4 kilometers in the summer is 85 minutes.....I can't even run 19.4km on a completely flat surface in 85 minutes. What a crazy pants.
We didn't quite follow the prescribed track exactly as it is normally laid out, the deep snow preventing that. So we didn't quite go 19.4km, we ended up going a little less, but a lot of km's nonetheless. Adrift Guiders, who we went with, provided us with crampons and ice axes to help us climb the ice.
So, enjoy some pictures that document our badass-ness.
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| At the top of Devil's Staircase, with Taranaki the little white cone on the horizon. |
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| It was obviously very cold and windy recently on the track, the ice formations on rocks and route markers were so cool! |
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| In front of Ngauruhoe |
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| I'm pretty sure I have this same picture, sans snow. |
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| BA |
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| Out of the snow! |
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| We did it! 8 hours later.... :) |
Headed to Auckland tomorrow, flying to Oz on Monday.
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