Day 10 Hike up a dormant volcano - Mt. Tarawera Crater

Today the weather was pleasant. We had a guided hike arranged today, with Kaitiati Adventures. Here is a comment from the providers website:

“Experience the unique landscape and history of Mt Tarawera. Infamous for its eruption on June 10th, 1886, Mt Tarawera created the world’s youngest geothermal valley of Waimangu, at the same destroying the legendary Pink and White Terraces.” (which prior to the eruption was New Zealand's most famous tourist attraction and drew visitors from across the British Empire).

The tour guide picked us up nearby our accommodations in the four wheel drive bus at about 8am. The location of the tour is on Maori historical land. The tour company is Maori owned and our guide was Maori. The tour starts with a short drive to the off road route leading up Mt. Tarawera. Then the bus kicks into four wheel drive and goes up a rough ride on an off road terrain “road.”

We then get off the bus and are guided on about 3-4 hours up to the crater of the mountain and back. The views were amazing. These photos do not even come close to the scale. Along some of the paths there was a sheer drop to the side down a severe slope that would be 100+ feet or much more. Near the top it is fairly steep and a four points of contact path. Along part of the route down we did the screed run. This is where you run (or walk, down a steep slope of volcanic rock. The red, black and white stones seen in the pictures are all volcanic rock. If you go too slow the loose small stones will fill up your shoes and your feet kind of sink into the stones. So we did our best to “run” the screed.

You can skip to the bottom to see several videos.