Ruapehu Crater Lake overnighter

if you have to ask you don't have the experience to go in the current conditions you'll be way out of your depth... you don't understand what conditions you use microspikes and snow shoes in vs what you will encounter... and if you dont know how to self arrest with an ice axe you definitely shouldnt be going. sometimes the internet is completely the wrong place to learn about going into the outdoors and this is one of those times get some practical instruction from qualified instructors and or get a qualified experienced guide before you become a liability to yourself an others. ruapehu is a whole different league even compared to the tongariro crossing, and that can be bad enough note all the weather parameters. https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Ruapehu/forecasts/2796

I have to agree mate. You shouldn't be asking questions like these here for situations like this. It's a bit crazy. Get a mountain safety course under your belt. Ruapehu is no place to work out how to tackle a Mountain in deep snow conditions.

Going up there in current conditions without full knowledge is a recipe for a vacancy on this forum. The walk up from Whakapapa isnt that onerus normally but as you say a lot of fresh snow which could be soft so you will be waist deep in places but more importantly is how it fell. If its fallen in layers with a freeze inbetween or if it all fell on icy ground the avalanche danger will be through the roof. The fact you have to ask means you dont know how to check the snowpack. It only takes a light thaw then refreeze to turn the top layer into a sheet of ice and if you dont know how to self arrest the only way you will stop sliding is when a solid object stops you.

Thanks geeves, that's the local knowledge I was looking for. BTW, wouldn't be in current conditions, there is a nice calm weather window on the way :-) And yes, I don't know how to check the snowpack, that's why I'm asking for advice! Would that kind of knowledge be available at the i-site in Whakapapa? Or is that stuff only personal inspection could tell? I thank you all, and I'll use your advice to cool the enthusiasm of our party.

As a mission, this is a more serious undertaking than it seems. If there is enough fresh, soft snow up there to make snow shoes helpful, it's likely you will be exposed to significant avalanche danger getting up there. Alternatively it could be hard and fast with boilerplate water ice all over the surface. It could change from one to the other overnight / as you're heading up or down. At a minimum, I'd want everyone in your group to have significant alpine experience and gear: Ice axes, crampons rope, and know how to use them in adverse conditions. Proper alpine tents and previous experience camping in the snow in adverse conditions. Can you get an alpine tent up in conditions where if you put anything down, it gets blown away never to be seen again? Can you navigate and make progress in conditions where you can't stand on your hind legs, see anything but blowing spindrift or see the screen of your GPS for the ice building up on it. Could you navigate your way out of trouble if you dropped your GPS or map/compass? I've been up there in conditions where that summit plateau area was littered with frozen dead waxeye bodies blown up in the storm. If we hadn't had ice axes, crampons, rope and a good alpine tent we'd have joined them. We wouldn't have been able to get down the next day without a climbing rope, we had to rope up and do one pitch at a time coming down, we could barely see a metre or two, howling spindrift and rime ice freezing up on everything, map unreadable due to ice freezing to it, scape the ice off the map with the edge of the compass and the print comes off with it. More than two of us / one weaker person and we'd have been in real trouble. Sure you plan on going only if the weather is good, but things can change pretty quickly in 24 hours. These North Island volcanoes are the only things sticking up so high winds, storm can come in from any direction, they can get a particularly nasty mixture of howling storm, sub zero, but wet so stuff is freezing on you as it hits you. I've seen my ice axe shaft getting thicker and thicker from rime ice build up on it as I've been using it. If conditions clear to nice calm weather, it'll be -20 C up there at night - if it has been warmer during the day then really nasty water ice forms. Mention of a bigger 'party' (how big?) with the certainty of different levels of experience, fitness and expectations also scares me. Get some alpine experience first / do a snow camping trip lower on the mountain having run your plan past ski patrol to make sure avo danger is low and you're not going to be camping somewhere the avo control people will be dropping bombs?

Ian_H, on temperature: According to waynowski link, the temperature on Wednesday night will be -3°C, and a clear night. Is that not reliable information? Thanks for the tip on asking ski patrol.

those temps are computerised estimates and the windchill is a better indication of the cold. don't ever take a forecast as the gospel they are often wrong, very wrong.. you have to look at ALL THE PARAMETERS including the wind and whatever it says the wind is it may well be a lot worse as it funnels over the top of the mountain. even experienced people die in the mountains let alone alpine winter novices https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11903230 https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2017/10/too-high-too-late-two-dead/ https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/82055929/Double-death-above-the-snowline-Seddon-Bennington-and-Rosie-Jackson-perish-in-Tararua-ranges

Hi BdB, all the advice above is spot on imo. You mentioned you're going in a party or did I misread that? On your own without any solid snowcraft is risky, but in a group, even more so. These trips can start out as a democratic desire to enjoy the outdoors, but someone has to take the lead. And that someone has to have experience, and better still, the ratio of experienced to inexperienced persons has to be high. Ian H's comment is sobering because that's exactly how things can go! And to get through it you have to have people to anchor the group based on experience.

I thought about a basic run down on how to tell what the snow is like but really it cant be done except in person by someone who knows what they are loking at and what it means. You can find videos on line. I learnt skiing snowboarding and welding from youtube but there aint no way Im learning how to read snow that way. And although I could show you the basics up there Im by no means an expert but without having the snow in your hand it cant be done. Get it wrong could mean dieing