Ruapehu

Today (5/20/09) was absolutely incredible!!! We went on a hike that took around 5 hours total, and it brought us up to the “lower limit” of the mountain.  Here, we were only to a foothill at the base of the mountain, but the scenery was gorgeous.  Let’s start at the beginning… the hike started with the entire group taking a 2 hour walk to some waterfalls.  The water here was flowing in place of old lava flows from when the volcano had erupted years ago.  This portion of the walk took us quite a bit longer than expected since so many of us wanted to stop and photograph the plants, ferns, mushrooms, lichen, and other various organisms along the way. It had snowed the night before, so much of the vegetation had a thin layer of frozen moisture covering it, but there was a point along the way that was dense with tall trees and thick shrubs covering the ground.  Here, there were tons of moss covered trees, and plants that displayed all the different shades of green.  The water from the fall flowed all through the forest, so the sounds of the rushing stream carried with us all along the hiking path.  Once we reached the waterfalls, the trail split.  Part of our group took the 45 minute walk back to the cabins we were staying at, while the other part took the estimated 2 hour hike (4 hour round trip) up to the “lower limit” where we would be able to see a lake at the base of the mountain.  I hiked along with the group to see the lake, which actually only took us 1.5 hours there, and about 1 hour back to the falls.  The trail turned into a muddy mess, with puddles, shrubs, and mud holes nearly every step of the way.  For me, this made it all the more interesting, and I was very grateful to have waterproof hiking boots on this trip.  The further we hiked, more snow and ice covered our path became, and the sun hid behind a layer of clouds.  A few people slipped and fell along the way, but thankfully no one was hurt.  Finally, we reached our destination, and the view was spectacular.  The water in the lake was a bluish green, and was surrounded by foothills with snow and ice which had trails of water running through it.  Here, we took a short break to eat the lunches we packed for ourselves earlier in the day, and of course to take some pictures.  We had to make it short, because once we stopped we all got really cold, really fast.  The walk back went much quicker, probably because it was mostly downhill.  It started snowing midway, which made me pick up my pace even more.  The last half hour of the walk felt like the longest part, but once we reached the cabins we all warmed up with hot showers and/or hot milo (pretty much like hot chocolate).  A perfect end to a perfect hike!