Yesterday, I hiked the Tongariro Crossing. This is one of the famous “tramps” of the North Island – and it is fantastic! It is 17km, with 800m of climbing, and 1100m of descending. For $25 dollars, various transport companies will bus you to the trailhead, and pick you up at the end.
Unfortunately, when the weather is good, it is a popular hike!
Tongariro hosts a complex of volcanoes. One of them, as you can see above, has the classical cone shape.
The volcanoes were used as locations for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings films. They do have some barren and nasty-looking places:
At the highest point of the track, you get to see Red Crater, with has some great colors, and sulfur vents.
Just down the slope from Red Crater are the Emerald Lakes:
It is a strenuous trek, but well worth the effort.
My only complaint is that the latest return shuttle is at 5:30pm. I found myself rushing to make sure I got out in time. I would have preferred an extra two hours, to have more time for photographic exploration. I had to pass up some promising opportunities.
As it was, though, we waited until 6:00 for some stragglers, so I could have taken a couple more shots.
These volcanoes are also used for skiing. Here is a poster explaining what to do if the volcano erupts while you are skiing:
There are no native pine or fir trees in New Zealand. The ones you do see were planted by settlers, or are in tree farms. The native trees do not grow at high altitudes, so the treeline on the mountains is very low. All of the skiing is above the treeline. There is no tree skiing in NZ!
One of the native beech species looks like a pine from a distance. It has the same conical shape, and the branch pattern resembles some types of pine:
When you get up close, you see that it actually has clusters of tiny leaves:
Michael Chmilar's Travels 
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