Saturday 13th of March 2010

Trampers from the Manukau Tramping Club met with members of the Auckland Joggers Club. The trip leader was Chuck.

We were woken up by a symphony of mobile phone alarms at 5am. 2 cars went up to the Turoa Ski Field – the first car saw iridescent cabbage tree/fern/punga type things and the 2nd car saw Bambi the deer. We parked adjacently across the parallel car parks and crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t get towed. The ground was crunchy ice. There were no cafes or information centres open where we could order flat whites but the lights and heaters of the buildings were on as though everyone had mysteriously vanished into thin air. The landscape was surreal and picturesque. The rocks were a rusty brown and the air was less than 0 degrees which felt like liquid nitrogen burning our nasal passages. Up in the sky a thin crescent moon lit up our morning passage.

We climbed to 2200 metres in 1.5 hours and then hit the “snow highway”, which was like a mini glacier almost all the way to the summit. The snow highway ran up between two ridges and had an icy base under foot that was sprinkled with 1cm of powder. It became steeper and steeper as we ascended. A heavenly beam of sunshine beamed down from the sky as we reached the razor ridge that led to the summit peak. There was a suspicious smell emanating from the Crater Lake that shone aqua marine turquoise. Our views at the summit stretched far and wide.

Suddenly an unforeseen snow cloud wooshed up the slopes of the mountain and hit us like a frozen slap in the face. The wind came up and ice started forming on our clothes and glasses. We urgently needed protection and found it behind the razor ridge. Here we planned our descent. Reluctantly we pushed back into the bad weather. Very quickly one of the group started exhibiting signs of hypothermia. The trip down was longer than the trip up. The conditions were terrible as 8 yeti like mountaineers with icicles hanging from our eyebrows, eyelashes white with ice, clothing frozen solid and wind burned faces stayed close together for safety.
The change in weather came when we were at our most exposed, and turned it into a more challenging trip. We were happy to make it to the top and even happier to get down again.
Regards,

Tony Hubscher