Mt Ruapehu - Tahurangi from Whakapapa

From the Whakapapa side, I've pretty much always gone up the Whakapapa Glacier onto the flat area between Paretetaitonga and Dome, then traversed west to the saddle overlooking the Mangaturururu Glacier before following the ridge south over point 2757 then stayed on the ridge around to the top of Tahurangi. It's not too difficult as far as climbing goes, but it is climbing with iceaxe and crampons and serious consequences if you slip at any point. http://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-39.280422,175.560917&z=15 This picture shows the ridge between point 2757 and Tahurangi: http://www.newzealandphoto.info/photos/kraterove-jezero-sopky-ruapehu-mt-ngauruhoe-v-pozadi-novy-zeland-191.jpg I spent 5 nights in an igloo just beside the top of point 2757 in the middle of winter a long time ago. Fingers sticking to metal cold the whole time. I think this is another picture from about point 2757 looking along the ridge to the summit of Tahurangi, this would be pretty close to where we built our igloo: http://i50.tinypic.com/ekj4fs.jpg Click on the pictures and they can be viewed at a larger size.

Have done it that way too, good route. Nice photos! Not always icey, but other snow conditions have their own risks. I have dropped down the steep face from Tahurangi towards the crater lake in snow that came up to the top of my thighs but was so light you couldn't feel any resistance. Someone I was with said "I don't like this" near the beginning and we moved over towards the west before continuing our decent. A bit later in the day we watched another group come straight down where we had started to drop. They triggered an avalanche and got swept to the bottom. Seeing it happen and then seeing people start to dig was terrifying. Our party and others that were up there just about killed ourselves getting over there as quickly as humanly possible. Luckily no one was hurt or buried but they did loose some gear - hence the digging.

We had an early season crack at Ngauruhoe a few weeks back - started well, but as soon as the sun hit the upper slopes we got bombarded by rockfall. Turned back and went and mucked around on Tongariro. Conditions on Ruapehu that weekend were much nicer.