Tongariro and Julia's First Brush With Death

Over the past few weeks I'd been hearing about the Tongariro great walk down in the central North Island. Looking online the NZ department of conservation suggested that we take "great caution" and to make sure that we were in "fine physical fitness" before we embarked on this trip. Obviously, we aren't fucking Lara Crofts here but we figured that we would probably be able to do this shit. Of course, after renting the car and the hut space I end up getting a full blown sinus infection. I spent 2 days in bed and woke up on Thursday, the day we were supposed to leave, feeling like hell. As the girls started packing to leave i go so upset that I decided, fuck it. I couldn't see straight, I was wobbling all over and I can't even tell you how many tissues i was going through, but I got up, packed my bag and decided to go for it.

I slept in the back seat all the way there, and we didn't arrive until 6:45, with a 3 hour hike ahead of us and 1 hour of light, we decided that our only choice was to just hardcore that shit up and get going. Tissues in hand we started out on the trail, we've up and down on dilapidated paths, in and out of trenches and over river beds. While the sunset was beautiful out there after it was gone we still had 2 hours of night hiking to do before we could even think about stopping. I was delirious, blinded, staring at my feet and guiding myself by the light on my god damn cellphone. After 2 hours of hiking in the dark we FINALLY found the hut, busted in, and passed out.

The next morning we set our for the most challenging part of the trail, Tongiriro Crossing. I was still feeling like shit, drinking as much water as i could and breathing shallow, but after last nights ordeal I wasn't about to give up during the best part of the hike. After an hour or so of hiking we made it to the base of the mountain. Looking ahead, we had what looked like a million stairs to climb to get to the summit. Next to the first step was a sign that said
"ARE YOU FIT ENOUGH?"
It featured a series of questions that you should ask yourself before willingly embarking on cardio hell. At the end it said:
"if you said yes to any of these questions, CONSIDER TURNING BACK"
I laughed at first and then as we started climbing these god forsaken stairs i began to think "HOLY SHIT, AM I FIT ENOUGH?" We climbed for hours, HOURS, I'm telling you, and its not an easy thing to do without a 25 pound pack on your back. We took a stop at the base of mount Doom AKA where Frodo returns that ring shit and ate lunch. We started out again and eventually the steps turned into rock face and i began to CLIMB THE ROCKFACE ON MY HANDS AND FEET. While much of my balance had returned to me by this time, i was still one bad step away from death. Finally I summited the crossing took my pack off and laid in the sun. The girls took a quick summit hike of Tongariro but feeling the fatigue of hiking with a fucking sinus infection i just took a nap in the sun until they returned.

After they returned we set out back down the crossing, passing by the beautiful Red Crater and shimming down to the Emerald Lakes. The rocks were loose and sandy on the steep decent and extremely difficult to keep my balance with the awkward pack on my back. The lakes were beautiful but the department of conservation failed to mention that the reason that the emerald lakes are green is because of SULFUR. We Finlay got down to what we thought was the bottom and went started on the last section of "trail" to get to our hut. The trails for this section were non existent, the only thing that helped us stay on track were the white trail heads as this was the worst foot trail we had been on all day. After coming down our final mountain face we set out in a volcanic tundra, with black sand, red grass, and sharp tall rocks all around. It took longer than expected to get to the hut but we settled in for the night and decided to do the next 2 days hike in one day.

Waking up early the next day we left the hut by 8 am and completed the next 3 hour hike right on time. We moved through tundra, and shallow mountain faces. We screamed all the lyrics to Brand New's Deja Entendu and moved through a series of gorges until we reached the last hut. We ate lunch and started back out to finish up the last 5 hour hike. We were exhausted during this last part, with the hot sun beating on us we took a moment to take our packs off and splash some of the cool fresh river water over us. We finished the hike with an hour or so to spare and made the long drive home to Auckland.

Figuring that we deserved some noodle canteen, we headed through Taupo and once again by the grace of god, found it without the aid of anything other than our collective "inner noodle compasses." That night, because we are fucking hard core, we made it back to Auckland, took showers and immediately went out. By the end of this weekend, my sinus infection was completely gone. Cure? 3 doses of wilderness Kesha, 8 oranges and 56km of ungroomed terrain.