Let me preface this entry by saying not every adventure is fun, but every adventure is worth it! Like Josh has been saying, this is not a vacation, this is a Trip (with a capital T). I’m beginning to notice the subtle differences between the two! When on vacation, you usually get to sleep in; when on a Trip, you get up at 3:30 am. Vacations usually mean leisurely morning coffees; Trip coffee is instant coffee with powdered creamer if I’m lucky. You envision a vacation day ending with drinks on a beach, or at a nice restaurant; Trip days never really end but when they do, I’m face down asleep in my dinner of Indian take out!

So, onto Day 5 wherein we tackle Mt. Doom. We hit the trail at 4:45 am, armed with clothes for all possible seasons, headlamps, and ample water and snacks (well, most of us…). We proceeded to walk steadily uphill for the first 3 1/2 hrs, 2037 feet in elevation, basically straight up! We were intentionally walking the track backwards, which is harder, in order to avoid hiking it with hundreds of other hikers. Our goal was achieved when we arrived at Blue Lake and had the whole thing to ourselves!

We met our first other hikers shortly after at the Emerald Lakes, a series of 3 small volcanic pools that are named for their intense color. We had our lunch here, although it was barely 10 am! The skies were not continuously clear but we lucked out with breaks in the weather frequently that allowed for some nice pictures.

Two hours down the trail, where we were walking upstream of the hoard of hikers, we got our first look at Mt. Ngauruhoe, complete with a partial rainbow! It wasn’t completely clear of clouds but even partially covered it loomed large on the horizon. Josh was questioning that it was the right peak, not completely convinced it was the one. We made our way to the base of the quintessential volcano, the same volcano all of us drew as children, ditched our extra water and began climbing. The start was easy but we quickly got to the part where a scrabble was easier than a walk, at least for three of us! It took us about 2 hrs to ascend the 2037 vertical feet to the lip of crater. My garmin had us at 13 miles at the top. I’m not going to lie, this was really tough! We had about 1/2 hr to enjoy the view, which was mostly cloud covered down slope, before the threat of rain hastened our descent. Going down presented it’s own challenges but we all became pretty proficient in skiing down the rocks.

We then walked the track in the “correct” direction back to Red Crater, one of our last big uphills, then the way home was mostly downhill. This should sound good to most people but for me, the down is always worse than the up. The up is hard physically because of exertion but I can power through. The down is always incredibly painful for me, especially my knees and feet. I knew that we had at least 6 miles of downhill switch backs ahead to get back and I knew my feet were going to be in bad shape! My attitude deteriorated from a jovial hobbit to a grumpy dwarf to a complete gollum by the end.

In the end we finished the route in 13 1/2 hrs (26 miles via the garmin), drank all the water, ate all the food, did not wear all the clothes, and took ALL the pictures!