Ruapehu Crater Lake Climb

good morning it's a beautiful Wednesday up here on the faka Papa ski field and um I'm heading off to do ruo's Crater Lake climb climbing up to dome Peak um the cafe it's just behind me there um we took the Skywalker gond up which saves me a lot of time and um yeah it's supposed to be 5 hours return back to the cafe so I'm assuming it's going to be like 3 hours up two hours down or something there's not too much snow up on the top so hopefully it's smooth sailing here I am at the um top of uh the null Ridge Tea Bar um there are two routes up to uh Dome Peak um one goes off that way uh further down and up there somehow um but it's recommended when there's um snow um to follow the nor Ridge te bar up and then I believe I suppose you could go up the valley but there's always the the high risk and I think you uh make your way up on top of this Ridge um here you can see the uh danger of walking on patches of snow like this um because this time of year they're all melting water runs through that the center of this snow is really thin if you fell through that it could be a meter or more drop into um running water which uh wouldn't be fun so um that's why you have to avoid patches of snow like that this is some quite cool ice I'm sure there's a technical name for this and uh it's all come out there little spikes going well uh I think I'm supposed to be on this Ridge when I was looking at the um uh guide to getting up but um from the top of the Tea Bar which is down there behind me I couldn't see any real safe easy way up on top of the ridge from there but um up this Valley there are quite a few Rock cars leading the way up and I have spotted the um occasional bootprint and um way down a couple poles pole markings in the snow so I think this is all right I'll come back down on the ridge as long as I'm but this ways fine as long as I'm away from the middle of the valley up at um 2,400 M now up down the valley there's another hoy and uh there's a little bit of a outcrop of rocks here but after that I'm going to uh head over towards those patches of snow and up on top of the ridge to um get out of the valley but I'm well out of it now and uh yeah got some incredible views [Music] oh that's solid ice I thought it was going to be soft that is some that hurt this is quite cool so here is a big patch of snow this here if it wasn't for this view in here where these rocks are in this uh dirt here that's actually ice um as you can see it's all worn under there that's actually just solid ice under all that rock that's not the ground it's just meters thick it's probably permanently frozen over the summer this is the layer here from Winter there's another layer of ice and then there's another one under there [Music] too [Music] [Music] [Music] someone need an Old Sock oh it's up here 2,500 m above sea level if you want it um I'm going up to those cars there been out of the valley for a little bit now um I don't know the names of The Ridges here they're not marked on the um topographic maps but they are on the ski field ones um but I think this might be n Ridge I'm not [Music] sure [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] for [Music] this is the um uh volcanic monitoring shed you can't um stay here uh it's just for monitoring the volcano and um I thought the cabin was further up but it's just a concrete box so uh that's what that is with's still incredible no clouds anywhere near me yeah that High Point up there that's where I'm [Music] [Music] going [Music] this is the summit Plateau this is all ice under here under this rock you can see it over there now that's Dome Peak so I'm going to follow the track up and along this [Music] [Music] Ridge [Music] [Music] nearly at the top wow look at this the ruu crat Lake up there is the high point of Ru 2,797 M got great views out towards the Dapo desert and the Kor ranges we got the summit plateau and the Tre comes from over there Dome Peak is uh behind me up there and I've just come down the ridge um here is Summit Plateau is the crater lake and down here is the Fungo uh Valley um this is the fungoo glacier and that little white square in the middle is um fungoo Hut which is the uh highest Hut in the north island and one of the highest in the country in terms of um elevation so you can go up there it's in the um from the uh teino ski field um is how you get to that and yeah it's quite cold now I'm uh probably going to head back up and get packed all uh packed up now ready to get going there's the lake I'm going to head back along um Dome Ridge that way yeah this is just incredible [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm I'm heading back down the valley um The Tea Bar is up there but um there is a rough ground Trail down here and um the valley flattens out and I can curve back around to where the cafe is I need to be on the other side of this how I do that I don't [Music] know [Music] [Music] so I'm total up to the top of the mountain and back down that took me just over 4 hours up and down um yeah going down I reckon uh I Reck commend staying about the second Ridge over from um uh the t- bar um rather than going on the first Ridge like I did and then um but if you do and you do drop down into the valley I think it would probably be better to go up to the tar rather than down the valley like I did it's not too bad it's just Technical and kind of sidling above the river but otherwise it's um it's been a great day [Music] [Music]

Channel: TheWayfarerNZ

Views: 516

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Id: oOJHxWUuZs4

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024