September 26th, 2019. Taupo, New Zealand.
Round Trip: 3 Hours, Elevation Gain: 538m
Easy Scramble
A throwback trip report from our time in New Zealand, specifically from the month that we spent working out of a hostel in Taupo, North Island. We managed to recruit a fellow Canadian named Liam for this outing and he was kind enough to provide us with a ride to the trailhead. Can’t speak for how access is now but in 2019 at the time of our hike there was a carpark and information board with all the stats. Having recently found what I previously thought were lost photos, I can finally post this report all these years later!
We hadn’t read up a whole lot on this one other than a couple quick reviews off of Google Maps and All Trails. The conclusion was that this was a half day outing at most and more-so a steep hike than scramble per-se. That proved to be mostly true, though some sections of the trail did get hands on hiking up through hard-packed mud flow channels. Its a fairly straightforward trail up to the summit’s trig with a minor side-quest through the trees to get a view (the actual highpoint is fully covered).
Starting out from the carpark the trail winds through a private farm field before entering the forest and quickly gains in elevation. The trail follows what would have historically been the lava outflow of the volcano up the southwest corner of the peak. Some sections involved easy scrambling along the previously mentioned hard packed mud-trenches and several complex root systems. It was a short and steep effort filled with laughs and good story swapping, Liam later surprised us at the viewpoint with summit beers, what a legend!
It was a brisk breezing visit at the top, given Tauhara is surrounded by farmland it took the brunt of the wind. A well travelled side-trail led us from the summit along the southern rim of the cone to a scenic rocky outcropping where the views opened up. We bumped into a few other familiar faces from our hostel at that viewpoint, and would uncoordinatedly run into these folks again on future hikes elsewhere on the North Island. After enjoying our summit beers we followed the same trail back making for a clean 3 hour return trip. Some great memories looking back at this one!
We would later learn on a future trip to Guatemala that these “trench” features are unique to Volcano cones often formed by Lahar flows. In some cases they can also be formed by intense monsoon-level rainfall.
Steep Sheep 