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New Zealand Volcanos 4 Taranaki

New Zealand Volcanos 4 Taranaki


Postby past my sell by date » Fri May 10, 2019 7:26 pm

Date walked: 23/02/2003

Time taken: 7

Distance: 14 km

Ascent: 1186m

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After my ascent of Ruapehu, the weather remained fine and next day I left Turangi and drove around 200Km down the aptly named "World Forgotten Highway to Stratford near the foot of 2518m Mt Taranaki - the most Southerly and Westerly of North Island's volcanos
01.jpg
The forgotten highway - route 43
02a.jpg
The forgotten highway passes through areas of virgin forest and at the time included a 50km section of dirt road Giant Rimu pines tower above the forest
03.jpg
Farmland on the forgotten highway with hills behind
04.jpg
The sedimentary nature of the land leads to a lot of eroded V shaped valleys like this
Wikipedia
Mount Taranaki, or Mount Egmont, is an active but quiescent stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. Although the mountain is more commonly referred to as Taranaki, it has two official names under the alternative names policy of the New Zealand Geographic Board. It is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world . For many centuries the mountain was called Taranaki by Māori. The Māori word tara means mountain peak, and naki is thought to come from ngaki, meaning "shining", a reference to the snow-clad winter nature of the upper slopes. Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont on 11 January 1770 after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had supported his expedition . The last major eruption was in 1655, but volcanic activity was recorded in 1854

I shall adopt the more commonly used Taranaki in this report
05.jpg
Mt Taranaki in the National Park
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Taranaki from near Stratford
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There is a popular multi-day "Round Taranaki track, and I followed this North from "Jackson's Lookout" - bottom R - to near Tahurangi lodge - where I turned L up the NE ridge
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Taranaki from Jackson's lookout
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A wider view - the NE ridge is the R horizon
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The route crosses the Manganui Gorge - a source of considerable avalanche danger in the skiing season: the map shows a cableway crossing above it: this was proposed in 2017 but I don't know if it has actually been built
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Climbing the rough tephra of the NE ridge: on the descent I found it much easier to descend the snow slopes to its R
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Nearing the crater edge
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Looking N to S, The crater is snow-filled even in Summer. The 2518m summit is up to the R - the 2510m "Shark's Tooth" straight ahead
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Easy snow slopes lead up to the top. I took an ice axe but not crampons
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The Shark's Tooth from the summit
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Summit - looking out to sea
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Looking NW across the North Taranaki Bight
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Looking steeply down the NW face
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I descended the same way - Shark's Tooth again
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Closer view. I had a look at the tooth but decided not to attempt it. The rock was heavily fractured, and I was alone and nobody would miss me if I failed to return :(
The constant melting and refreezing made the snow slopes of the descent extraordinarily granular, and when I practiced slipping and arresting with my axe the icy lumps scratched my wrists and elbows, but it was much quicker than the rocks. Lower down I retraced my route to the car
21.jpg
Manganui gorge in the evening light
22.jpg
Last view of Taranaki
Flowers on the Round Taranaki section of the route
Almost all New Zealand's flowers are white or near white - not because the bees are colourblind :lol: :lol: , but because they are pollinated by flies that have very poor vision and just see brightness.
23b.jpg
Left - Kapoti - an aromatic umbellifer right - New Zealand Eyebright
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Left - Bog Daisy Right -Unidentified :there are not many native six petalled flowers in NZ

West Coast - miscellaneous photos
New Zealand is awash with superb scenery. Every corner you turn you want to get out the camera and capture some of it. These are just pics - first of the Rangitkei river North of Wellington and then of mainly coastal scenery up the West coast.
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The Rangitkei river is one of the longest in New zealand
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There are several "old" river banks in this photo
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Sedimentary cliffs above the river
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I headed North up the W coast stopping a night at Raglan
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More cliffs and tree ferns
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I stopped for a walk in Pirongia forest Park. - the section by the coast and climbed towards Mt Karoi. The problem with the forests is that they are quite impenetrable - you can only walk on tracks cut through them
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Raglan harbour from the lookout in the forest
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Left - More tree ferns Right - A different sort of fern
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From the start of the walk, looking down the coast to Albatross point
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From near the same point, view down to the sea
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A pohutukawa in full flower
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Heron
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Gulls and a solitary tern on the beach
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Oystercatchers at Kawhai beach
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another beach
Last edited by past my sell by date on Sun Jan 05, 2020 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
past my sell by date
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Re: New Zealand Volcanos 4 Taranaki

Postby dav2930 » Sat May 11, 2019 10:14 pm

What a fine looking mountain! Looks quite a bit like Fuji. I'd heard of Mt. Egmont but didn't know its Maori name. Looked an exhilarating climb up there. :clap:
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Re: New Zealand Volcanos 4 Taranaki

Postby past my sell by date » Mon May 13, 2019 3:54 pm

dav2930 wrote:What a fine looking mountain! Looks quite a bit like Fuji. I'd heard of Mt. Egmont but didn't know its Maori name. Looked an exhilarating climb up there. :clap:


Yes it was used as a Fuji substitute in the Kurusawa's Seven Samurai.
The tendency now is to use the Maori names. By and Large New Zealand has done better with its first Nation than anyone else, partly because although there were wars, the Maori were smart enough almost from the start, to realise that they could benefit from the White man's technology. :)
past my sell by date
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Re: New Zealand Volcanos 4 Taranaki

Postby Clach Liath » Wed May 15, 2019 4:01 pm

I was looking forward to this report (as mentioned in my comment on your Ruapehu post).

I climbed Taranaki in January last year. It is a great outing, and quite popular. I started from North Egmont and met with your route, I think, at Tahurangi Lodge. After then I suspect we followed the same way up.

Like you I had a great day weather-wise. There are links to my route description, pics (and vids) for Taranaki (and those for Ruapehu) here - http://clachliath.com/2018/05/

You also look to have had much more snow than I did. I only encountered the crater snow.

In addition to the two names given to the mountain, the law had recently changed before my visit so that Taranaki was given a legal personality and now has similar rights to people. This is in common with a few other natural features in NZ and is driven by Maori beliefs. So if damage is caused to the mountain, this is treated in the same way as, say, an assault on a person.

Perhaps we should adopt the same approach in the UK!
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