mount doomed
the tongorriro crossing, an apparently arduous walk through mordor, is known as the best one day hike in new zealand: this grandiose title presumably refers to the one day a year that the weather is clear enough to afford the kind of stunning views a traverse of the saddle between two volcanoes should provide. every single person i've met who has done the walk has said that it would probably have been spectacular if they could see anything past the cloud, and, despite the forecast saying it would be clear all morning, i have to join that disheartened band. i'm sure the peaks were stunning behind all that grey, but who knows.the landscape was very different to the lush green vegetation i've come to associate with the fertile land that usually surrounds volcanoes, being a dry, arid wasteland filled with rocks of various hues, notably a mordoresque wall of vivid red. the emerald lakes were also pretty enough i suppose. the hike itself however was just not challenging: after a steepish 45 minute scramble up the rather flatteringly titled devil's staircase, the rest of the 17km were basically a very slow, very easy, and very crowded, amble back downhill. they should just make it a shorter, more interesting, loop track, not a seven hour sunday school stroll.
so another much hyped new zealand attraction turns out to be a damp squib: i don't know who does pr for the tourist board but they are geniuses, and presumably sleeping with the editor of lonely planet.
posted by bicrom @ 6:11 am
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