Three days of torrential rain left too much snow on the peak of Taranaki to attempt the summit without crampons and an iceaxe. At 2240 meters, Mount Taranaki gets the first snow of the season, and I'd left this last summer hike too late to safely reach the peak. Repacking my bags, I set off round the mountain instead.The North Egmont Visitor Centre is a pretty serious affair. Mountain Cafe and Taranki Museum disguise the fact that this office is here to make sure that less people die on the mountain. A relatively easy climb, with very rapid changes in weather means Mount Taranaki is easily the most dangerous mountain in New Zealand. As I signed in my hiking intentions I kept my fingers crossed that if I did fall down a gully that the helicopter would come before I became another statistic.
From the visitor centre the path climbs rapidly up The Razorback. The cloud was low and the forest saturated. As the path leveled out and turned south, forest gave way to tussocked grassland and the steep slopes of the mountain came into view.
As I passed the Manganui Lodge, the rain began to pour. For an hour I fought forward through a wall of water, arriving early afternoon at Dawson's Falls where I spent the night in the mountain lodge - drying clothes and eating pasta.
The next morning I rose early for the longest, and hardest day of my round the mountain hike. Putting my pack on my back, I set off, up a seemingly endless slope. The rain slacked off as I reached the turn off for the Kapuni Lodge, where the sludgey track gave way to snow and ice.
I had originally intended to spend the night in Syme Hut but the ice on the track made my ascent precarious, so I headed off south west down the Upper Lake Dive Track. Grass, heavy with windblown ice, cut into my calves as I forced myself forwards across the frozen slopes.
A brief respite from the cold as the path decended below 1300 metres gave a moment's chance to back down. Snow and ice, horizontal sleet. Should I take the easy route down the mountain and try again tomorrow? As I considered my options, the clouds, milky chaos, parted briefly and gave a glimpse of blue. There is nothing like sunshine for morale.
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At the Waiaua Gorge Hut, I stopped; exhausted. Filling up on instant noodles, I lay down in front of the coal fire and slept fitfully as the full moon drifted westwards over the silent mountain.
The next two days I took it easy. An early start and a two hour wander across dry river beds, through thick forest took me to the Kahui Hut. As I dropped my backpack, the sun finally came out strong, and I spent the afternoon of day three lying in the sun reading and drying my socks. The next day I set off down the Puhino Track across 20 meter deep gullies where rivers in flood rage, uprooting trees and rolling bolders. At Stony River, the confluence of volcano soaked water becomes one mighty channel, at wide as a Los Angeles highway; as deep as a Manhatten Street. Bolders, as big as Minis, rolled like marbles, stand stuck on perches waiting for the next dredging. It's unnerving to imagine a wall of water sufficiently heavy to shift this land.
Skirting the south side of The Dome I made an early dinner at Holly Hut and snuggled up in my sleeping bag in front of the wood stove as the rain began to pour, all night, and again all day, as I trudged my way back to the North Egmont Visitor Centre for beer and a generous fried breakfast.
