Surprisingly there were only 4 keen souls wishing to join Alan on his winter tramp – the weather forecast wasn’t looking too bad. We were taking Alan’s van down, so it gave us a good opportunity to leave at 5:30pm rather than at the usual 7pm. We were picking up Kumar from his place at Mystery Creek and Chris at Kihikihi, stopping for dinner along the way.

Alan did a good job of driving and we arrived at the Mangatepopo car park at 9:30pm. Rugging up and loading up we set off to the hut. Surprisingly there was only one set of boots parked outside – did everyone else have an updated weather forecast? We took over one of the rooms and went to sleep.

In the morning we woke to heavy rain and white out, so we made Alan stay in bed a little longer. A group of elephants had arrived approx 12:30am, so we were all a little tired from the sleep interruption. The group that had come in were the Auckland Uni tramping club and they were hoping to climb Ngauruhoe, but were still optimistic that we could get to Oturere hut.

As we were leaving an Irish girl called Carol was keen to join us. She was over in NZ for two months touring around by herself with her mountain bike. Lovely person, and we chatted her ears off pretty much all the way. It was a little breezy along the flats, in which it proceeded to get worse the higher up we got. We only got ¾ of the way up the new ‘devils staircase’ and we had to put our crampons on. Apparently it was the worse ice conditions on record for 12 years. We got to the top of South Crater and it was miserable. “Sheltering” behind a rock we decided to head back to Mangatepopo hut. Our hands were frozen little ice blocks. The zips on Alan’s over trousers had come undone and Alan’s hands were frozen so he couldn’t pull up his pants – he was walking like a real home boy.

Carol and Trace came to the rescue much to the amusement of the others.We got back to the hut around 2.30ish, starving for lunch. The rest of the day we spent milling around, waiting patiently for our cheese and crackers, and of course dinner.

Sunday dawned a complete opposite from Saturday – not a cloud in the sky – perfect conditions for climbing big hills. We set off around 8.30ish and decided to take a mini-short cut up some of the ridges instead of going along the track (won’t tell whose idea that was ;-). Think we took perhaps the steeper part up Ngauruhoe, but hey it was all good fat-burning. The sun was out and we could see Mt Egmont in the distance. Carol had decided to come with us again (great bunch of people that we are). She had hired crampons from Skotel but they had said an ice axe was not necessary (duh! Think the Skotel chickie needs to do a WTC snowcraft course!) so poor Carol only got about half way up before things got a bit tough; so she found a nice comfy spot and waited for us to return. Kumar kept her company as he was feeling a little under the weather.

Alan, Lesley, Trace and Chris got to the top and had a quick bite to eat, thinking damn, we have to now get down. The views were amazing – looking right over to Mt Edgecombe and Lake Taupo. Our descent led us down a different ridge, but we still could see Carol and Kumar. Carol wanted us to come over and help her get down. Lesley and Alan carried on heading down; Chris and Trace sidled over to Carol and helped her navigate down. Chris lent her his ice axe which certainly helped. This was where we left Carol as she was going to continue her way to Ketetahi Hut. We got back to Mangatepopo Hut just before 5pm, packed up, warmed up with a cup of tea before heading home – stopping on the way at the Traveller’s Lodge for a scrumptious dinner. Fantastic weekend Alan, thanks! The mountaineers: Alan, Lesley, Trace, Chris, Kumar and our Irish (English) tourist, Carol.