Tahurangi Mt Ruapehu - How hard is it??

Chuck, All I know is the Turoa ascent is the easiest. i know people who have done it but winter only. Not sure how it sits in summer but I assume you are planning on sidling the east side of the lake?

Craig, I am sure the Turoa accent is the easiest. It was not all that easy when we did it last March but that was because of sub zero weather and high wind. We plan on going the west side of the lake. Why did you presume the east side?

No particular reason, its just the route i know others have done. I am no expert believe me. Although I have summitted Tahurangi from Turoa that is the only time ever I have climbed up Ruapehu. If you go the west route you will have to go across the Gladys wont you and back across to the summit (unless you like it a steep scramble)

Thanks for the response. We have found a couple of people who went the west side of the lake and across the glacier up a slope and west of the summit and then up like from Turoa which we did last March. My photo is from the summit looking down on the Crater Lake. I will be off shortly and we plan on starting from the Top of the Bruce about 5am. The weather looks not too bad. Will post on our return.

Would be interested how you get on. I am heading down that way next month and thinking of having a play around on Ruapehu. Although I have made Tahurangi summit since my original post, still thinking of giving it a go again in summer or perhaps I will head to the Te Heuheu side

The Te Hue Hue side is much more fun than the plod across (to the West). theres some fun scrambling and route finding (staying on the ridge is easy enough, but finding a way up the ridge is interesting higher up. depressing view from that side tho - the crater lake is way off to the west. (so don't promise anything to first-timers that want to see the lake (like the wife :-( the good part is the entire route is visible from the Knoll ridge cafe'.

hmmm i thought the view from Te Heu Heu would be better thean Tahurangi looking down on Ngauruhoe??

We did not quite make it to the dome hut but we learned a few things. A GPS is great but when visibility bad it is east to go up a wrong ridge. We got to 2600 and were about 500 metres from the dome shelter at about 10:30 in the morning. The visibly started deteriorating further as well a temperature. We decided the sensible thing was to turn back as even if we got up a peak we would not see anything. This was the first time I had used crampons and an ice axe. It certainly makes it a lot easier to get up glaciers up the gullies. If we had of had them last March when when we went to the top from Turoa Shortly after we turned back we came across a couple from Europe. We could not believe how poorly equipped they were. The man had a umbrella which he was using as a walking stick and a very small backpack. His partner was wearing a skirt and had only a bag slung over her shoulder. We tried our best to persuade them to turn back without success. We hope they got off the mountain. Has anyone any suggestion what to do in such circumstances. The mountain will still be there for another try.