Stumbling up Mt Ngauruhoe

He was lucky he had a powerbank for his phone so he could keep the screen light going. I wore 4 layers and overtrousers when I stopped for lunch yesterday on a 700m high summit. Plus the neck muff and hat.

I think there's probably some diplomatic language in the description. I haven't been around the crossing for a while. Is it common for people to go up Ngauruhue, still, despite the requests to respect it and avoid climbing?

bad visibility? ran onto the unofficial trail at the bottom of ngauruhoe and kept climbing, thinking he was heading over red crater?

I assume he was doing the crossing west:east and took the right ridge after south crater. In poor vis. Still seems incredible to me that he managed to get up to 2100m before realising that he might have made a wrong turn.

It's hard to know exactly what happened without more context, but if the group had been up there intentionally then there's every reason for authorities not to make a big deal of it. Firstly it'd risk encouraging other people to think it's normal and they should go there too when that contradicts the official message, and secondly it'd probably result in the usual polarised angry arguments which distracted from the safety messages.

It's surprising the mistakes people can make. I was on a trip once walking down a valley to the main river, when a party member needed to go off the track (comfort stop). So we carried on a bit to give her some privacy. When she got back to the track, she then went upvalley for a distance until she realized the stream was on the right hand side of her instead of the left and it was flowing in the opposite direction to her travel. The amazing thing is that she left her newly-gifted walking pole where she'd 'gone' and come back 6 months later and found it where she'd left it. I often think of that when I'm walking down that valley (Pfeifer Ck). I try and imagine coming onto the track and walking in the wrong direction!

ive done a full circle on a ridge traverse on a saddle before... in bad weather the formed track disappears at south crater. if you pick up other queues there was a warn track heading to ngauruhoe, there were markers, not sure about now, he might have ended up following other people who were going to climb ngauruhoe...