By Jack Huygens, 21 June 2024
Trampers: Jack, Sean, David, Alan, Toby, Finlay, Max, Tram, Felicity
We had big plans, cramming the whole "Round the mountain" track into 4 big days as a midwinter trip during the uni holidays... but those plans became a bit more flexible along the way.
Firstly, the weather was looking very rough (well, pretty much a blizzard) for the next few days, and the start of our trip already proved to have lots of ice in the valleys, which slowed us down a ton. On top of that, our group wasn't quite up for the 10hr days required to make this trip a reality, so we decided to just make the most of what we had nearby and abandon the idea of a full round-the-mountain.
We got a stunning second day, with great views of Ruapehu and even a side-trip off track to go visit a waterfall, making the most of it before the weather packed in. But on the 3rd day... oh boy. It started off pretty normal with just light rain (actually better than expected) but after breakfast I found myself suddenly hit with a fever. Since it was just a short 2-3hr walk out we continued on as normal, but let me tell you a fever does not mix well with winter conditions. The first section of the route out was rough, but once we reached the ski field road we got the full brunt of the icy wind. After barely any time in the wind my sickness mixed with the cold to dish out some early signs of hypothermia (turns out a fever messing with your body heat doesn't mix well with exhaustion and sub-zero winds). Luckily, we managed to get a hitch-hike down the road from some lovely army trainees in a van who were heading home after some training on the mountain.
That was my closest brush with hypothermia, and quite an eye-opener for sure. Moral of the story: sickness exponentially increases your vulnerability to the cold!
Regardless of that, it was still a great weekend spent around the base of Ruapehu, and it's a stunningly beautiful area. Maybe one day we'll be back again (in summer) to give the full round-the-mountain a go!
