RUAPEHU
SUMMIT

Climbing Ruapehu had long remained my unfinished business. By that point I had already walked the Tongariro Crossing several times and been to the Tama Lakes (which I will write about someday later). This route kept getting put off, even though every new hike in the area only fed my interest in it. In early 2026 I already knew that in March we were moving to Queenstown. So I had to make a firm decision and organise the hike, because doing it later would have been much harder.

In January I started watching for a good forecast in the area. I wrote in detail about why this matters in the Tongariro report, but in short: the weather here changes very fast, there are only three peaks, and if cloud rolls in over them there is nothing to look at. On top of that the route is not marked, and in poor visibility it is very easy to get lost on it.

When a suitable weather window came up, I roped in three friends, and together with my wife we booked a place to stay and set off for the volcano in the evening, to start the climb the next morning.

On top of that I made sure to check the activity on GeoNet. Then, as now, it was at the first level out of five: minor volcanic unrest. That is higher than Tongariro, so formally the chance of an eruption here is greater too. Although, as I have written before, any active volcano can become active at any moment, regardless of the level. Ruapehu is one of the country's most active volcanoes: of more than sixty recorded eruptions, most fell in the 20th century. Major ones happen roughly once every half-century (1895, 1945, and the 1995–1996 series), and the last notable one was in 2007.

And one more small but important note. Ruapehu is a serious alpine mountain that is easy to underestimate. In June 2024 a 26-year-old woman died here: an experienced hiker, she had put on crampons for the first time the day before, but even they did not help: she slipped on the ice and slid about 250 metres down the slope. I am describing my route in summer, snow-free conditions. If there is ice on the slopes, it is a completely different mountain, and without the appropriate gear, crampons, an ice axe, and, most importantly, experience, you must not go here.

The next morning we arrived at the car park early, right for the gondola opening. It only started running at ten in the morning, which is fairly late given that it closed at four in the afternoon. Essentially we had about six hours for the whole route: if you did not make it before closing, you would have to walk down another couple of extra kilometres.

In summer only the lower section of the gondola runs, and after that you have to climb 647 metres on foot. Although the figure does not seem big, it is a very hard climb: the gradient is very steep, there is almost no trail or signage, and you also feel the altitude (starting at 2000 metres) and the slightly thinner air.

There are essentially two options for how to start the climb: along the Knoll Ridge T-bar lift or along the Restful Ridge. I read various reports and did not find a clear opinion on which is better. We chose the Knoll Ridge T-bar: for one kilometre alongside it there is at least some marked route (not a perfect trail, but there are orange markers), and it leads to the top of the Knoll Ridge lift. You can pick the second option too, but it will be hard to work out exactly where to go and you will waste precious time on it.

On the stretch along Knoll Ridge we covered about a kilometre and gained some two hundred metres. The Pinnacle Ridge crags stuck up on the left the whole time.

The scenery here resembles either Mars or Mordor: no trees, no grass, just rocks, lava, and crags. The final point of this stage is the small Knoll Ridge hut, where you can rest and hide from the blazing sun.

After the hut the hardest part of the route begins: about 300 metres of climbing over one kilometre up a very steep slope strewn with boulders of all sizes. During the climb the valley between Ruapehu and Tongariro gradually opens up on the left, and beyond it the Ngauruhoe volcano peeks out. The climb is exhausting and, honestly, fairly monotonous, and in places it is also hard to tell exactly where to go. We were lucky: there were other people on the route we could navigate by.

The main task here is to hold a direction towards the saddle between Peak 2642 and Tukino Peak 2720 (in Organic Maps they are marked as landmarks). Snow turns up in this spot even in late summer.

The altitude adds to the difficulty. We were already at 2300–2600 metres, and although that is relatively little, breathing was noticeably harder than usual and every step took effort. My wife and I climbed up in about an hour and then waited another twenty minutes for our friends: they hike less often, and the climb became a serious test for them (and for us too).

But at the top the main crater opened up before us, and with it the Ruapehu glacier. The ice here never melts because of the altitude and cold. At first glance you do not even realise it is a glacier: it is all covered with ash and dust from past eruptions. These are, by the way, the only glaciers on the entire North Island.

On the left Tukino Peak rose above us with its jagged crags, and on the right you could see the peaks Tahurangi, Paretetaitonga, and Te Ataahua, towards which we still had to head.

When everyone had climbed up to the saddle, we sat for another fifteen minutes, had a snack, and moved on: it was half past twelve, and there were three and a half hours left before the gondola closed. From here the trail becomes noticeably easier, you just have to walk along the ridge, and there is a beaten track. The next goal is the acidic Crater Lake.

Along the way new angles open up onto the vent, onto Tukino Peak, onto the Tama Lakes valley, and onto Ngauruhoe.

Along the ridge you are constantly going up and down. But what views!

After about half an hour we reached a fork: one trail led down, the other to the lake. There was a little under three hours left before the gondola closed, and we had to decide what to do next. The lake was still about 600 metres away one way, plus a small climb. By this point two of our friends were already very worn out, so the three of us decided to make a quick dash to the lake.

And it was worth it. From the viewpoint other peaks of Ruapehu opened up that we had not seen before, along with the acidic Crater Lake.

Time was pressing, so we quickly took photos and hurried back to the guys to catch the gondola. At the fork it was two in the afternoon, with two hours left before closing. In that time we did not have that far to go: 2.5 kilometres and a drop of about 580 metres.

We descended via Restful Ridge (as I said, you could climb up it too). Here something like a trail appears again. Along the way we came across large patches of snow that in places you could even slide down, like on skis. The scenery is similar to what we saw on the climb, but perhaps even a little more interesting: Ngauruhoe and the valley with the Tama Lakes are better seen from here.

In one place the trail ran into a drop-off, but luckily we fairly quickly found a way down it.

After that the trail kept appearing and disappearing again, but we could see where the gondola was, so it was clear which way to head. If we had been climbing here, navigation would have been a bit harder, so it was not for nothing that we chose the Knoll Ridge climb at the very start. In the end we got an almost circular route, along two ridges at once.

We got back to the gondola about half an hour before closing. The whole route took about five and a half hours, and that with us noticeably hurrying in places. Time was tight: the route is unofficial and not built around the gondola timetable.

In the end I was very satisfied: I finally closed the loop and stood on the highest point of the North Island. This route was my favourite in the area, even more than the Tongariro Crossing. More scale, fewer people, and a harsher volcanic landscape.