The Crossing is Crossed!

Wow, what a walk/tramp we have had today and the weather was exactly right throughout. We were up at 5am, parked in Ketetahi Car Park having our breakfast by 20 past, on the shuttle bus by 6.30 and setting off as dawn broke at 7.15 am from the Mangatepopo car park with what seemed like a couple of hundred people (glad we got to the loos first!)
It was a chilly start but that was exactly what was needed for the first ascent and, as we moved up the valley folks found their rhythm and we began to lose the mob. I never fail to be amazed that people don't read up on such undertakings and so wear inappropriate clothes and footwear and don't seem to be carrying a bottle of water between them, however mini rant over and we were off.
The first section of the Tongariro Crossing (19.7k) was an easy walk up the valley to Soda Springs and already the terrain was starting to look lunar and obviously volcanic. Mount Doom (Mt Ngauruhoe) was in shade but would dominate this early part of the walk. Our driver advised against climbing it as it is covered in a layer of ash and very dangerous. From Soda Springs we began the first hard ascent to the South Crater (1660m) in something of a crocodile. This is called the Devil's Staircase (he always gets bad press in the mountains does that devil!) The South Crater is the point of no return, if you decide to go on here then you have to keep on going on. The views were absolutely stunning and, in the crater, I half expected Matt Damon to appear in his Mars buggy!
From South Crater to the base of Red Crater Ridge (1886m) was an easy walk followed by a difficult ascent to Red Crater Ridge. My blip shows the red crater taken from after the descent which was like coming down a steep slope covered in volcanic dust and I was glad I had my sticks for that section, but then the views of the Emerald Lakes on the way down were just fabulous. From then on in the tricky bits were behind us. Tony had taken a detour to climb to the summit of Tongariro so I continued on to the Blue Lake, where I ate my lunch and chatted to folks. The crocodile had by this time dispersed and I no longer felt harassed by other walkers, in fact the section to the Ketetahi Hut I walked practically alone.
The toughest part of the day was the long descent from the Hut which was 6.4k and had innumerable steps and just the wrong gradient for my knees despite the sticks.
We could both see why Peter Jackson chose this amazing landscape for his Mount Doom and Plains of Gorgorath, a completely alien landscape fashioned by the volcanoes. I've struggled to choose which blip to upload but have gone with this one because it shows the drama of the Red Crater and the other mineral colours in the rock, as well as Mount Doom behind. If you look very closely you might be able to see folks descending down the spur on to the crater floor. We reached our van in the Ketetahi car park just after six hours from setting out...and now a shower and a cup of tea!