What not to do

was on tongariro recently,, day walkers still climbing up to south crater in the afternoon... not sure they all realised they were pushing available daylight.

What's that old mountain safety council saying "Travelling light can end up heavy going" Right decision to turn back Can of worms remained unopened

'was on tongariro recently,, day walkers still climbing up to south crater in the afternoon… not sure they all realised they were pushing available daylight.' I know you want to recommend people be prepared and be aware of their capabilities. You may well have a tendency to emphasise or exaggerate certain issues to highlight your point. However, it is not illegal to walk at night. Maybe they were in fact day and nightwalkers. Maybe they're not scared of the bogeyman. Maybe it was a foray into the evening to condition themselves to handling the dark. Encouraging the public to think outside the box isn't always a bad thing. Why condition people to think there is only one way to do anything. We aren't all sheep, you know. I have conducted night activities for many years and still do not hesitate to do so. Before headlamps became commonplace, i was with others, climbing and scrambling at night with a maglite in my mouth.

These days headlamps are very good and very small so its possible they had one and were expecting to be walking at night. Also we dont know the date or weather so it could of been fine and full moon. Walking by moonlight is easy and a great experience. However you can still often look at a group and think I hope they are more prepared than they look. You know that 8 times out of 10 the answer is no. A typical group in question might all be wearing jeans and t shirts and not a pack between them.

Oh yeah, navigating by one Mini Maglite between two of us in the pitch black brings back some unwanted memories! Did show how even a track we had covered dozens of times before can become much more difficult with extremely limited visibility. Was definitely a good learning experience. As to the actual topic... I skipped through the video in bits and obviously they were undergeared and under estimated the time required, but, good to see hey eventually made the right decision to turn back. I did find it extremely odd that they were basing their decision to go on from "if we turn back there will be three river crossings etc". Did I miss some bad river crossings early on? They obviously had an aversion to wet boots and cost themselves a lot of time removing and replacing them. Was this all that worried them about the crossings? I am assuming this is not common practice for many others here? I do admit I often go to extremes to skip across rocks etc to keep my feet dry at the start of trips — even if I know I will get them wet later — but don't think I have ever taken my boots off to keep them dry. Wet feet is just a fact of tramping life!

Remember the boots of 20 years ago. Even if they were saturated in neatsfoot oil or dubbin they were still hard as granite till they got properly wet. Ive seen people at the carpark standing up to there knees in whatever water was there for 20 minutes before starting a tramp. Also though I remember a pair or French tourists at Triangle hut. Admittedly the only crossing on that trip is right outside the hut so they would have got there with dry feet but we were in the hut watching them dutifully taking off boots and socks and rolling up trouser legs before coming across then putting them all back on for the last 20 meters. It seems like river crossing in boots is strictly a New Zealand thing.

Classic. The only good thing about this video was the scenery. The main problem was their preoccupation with crossing streams and getting wet boots.sheesh. Dicking around taking off boots,no navigation skills (they were heading up a valley for God’s sake,not hard) but at least they turned around. Guarantee not a plb in sight either.

i just said i wondered if they were prepared for darkness, thats all,. people on the tongariro are often notoriously unprepared , the people i saw were dressed in streetwear.. cotton t shirts etc... maybe they had lights, theres been plenty of rescues on the crossing by people who werent, people heading up ngauruhoe in the afternoon as well getting stranded. i've been up there and had my clothing covered in rime ice in winter...

as I said However you can still often look at a group and think I hope they are more prepared than they look. You know that 8 times out of 10 the answer is no. A typical group in question might all be wearing jeans and t shirts and not a pack between them. Even summer up there is likely to be sub zero and if the wind is blowing