Hi,
This last weekend saw me Heading down to the Central North Island here in NZ for a Snow Caving and Mountaineering trip.
Friday Night was spent in a Hut in the Mangatepopo valley In Tongariro National Park.
Saturday Morning dawned bright and cold with a good view of the mountains from the Hut deck.
The conical Strato Volcano Covered in snow is Mt Ngauruhoe 2287m those of you who are LOTR fans might recognise both the Mangatepopo Valley and Mt Ngauruhoe from the movies Ngauruhoe stood in for Mt Doom so I'm told and the Mangatepopo valley was some part of Middle Earth or other....
For a Snow Caving Trip equipment Scales are on the large side and I manged to almost fill my Vulcan with stuff...
So after lugging that baby up hill over 6 k and 600m of vertical height gain I was glad to get to a decent snow drift in Mt Tongariro's Southern Crater...
Digging commenced.....
A word of friendly advice... If you're ever considering using a plastic snow shovel in NI NZ snow pack.. Don't We get lots of refreeze layers in the snow which tend to bugger up plastic shovels in short order aluminium is the order of the day...
After a bit of work we had a decent cave....
Etherial blue light.....
enjoy...
This last weekend saw me Heading down to the Central North Island here in NZ for a Snow Caving and Mountaineering trip.
Friday Night was spent in a Hut in the Mangatepopo valley In Tongariro National Park.
Saturday Morning dawned bright and cold with a good view of the mountains from the Hut deck.
The conical Strato Volcano Covered in snow is Mt Ngauruhoe 2287m those of you who are LOTR fans might recognise both the Mangatepopo Valley and Mt Ngauruhoe from the movies Ngauruhoe stood in for Mt Doom so I'm told and the Mangatepopo valley was some part of Middle Earth or other....
For a Snow Caving Trip equipment Scales are on the large side and I manged to almost fill my Vulcan with stuff...
So after lugging that baby up hill over 6 k and 600m of vertical height gain I was glad to get to a decent snow drift in Mt Tongariro's Southern Crater...
Digging commenced.....
A word of friendly advice... If you're ever considering using a plastic snow shovel in NI NZ snow pack.. Don't We get lots of refreeze layers in the snow which tend to bugger up plastic shovels in short order aluminium is the order of the day...
After a bit of work we had a decent cave....
Etherial blue light.....
enjoy...
