I woke up for sunrise, it was partially undercast again but the sky above was completely clear, the full moon hadn’t set yet, Mt Ruapehu (which I just hiked around two weeks ago) was in the distance, one of the only other things breaking through the undercast clouds. I sat alone on a rocky outcropping watching the sun slowly rise. It’s one of those days where I’m just thankful for life and overwhelmed by the beauty of nature around me.
I have been looking at surf forecasts and Sunday is looking good, but although it’s possible to make it all the way around and back for Sunday, it’s also very likely we won’t. So I bailed and decided to head back instead of continuing around the mountain.
The trip down from the summit was faster than I expected. It’s not dangerous, but lots of sliding rock and quite steep. No chance of falling far, but I think we all fell down at least once, and at the bottom my shoes were full of rocks. I miss my gaiters, they don’t really fit on these shoes out of the box.
At the bottom of the scree field Robin and I said goodbye and Amber and I said goodbye for now (since we are both hiking the TA we will likely meet up again).
I didn’t remember there being quite so much up and down on the way in, but I got quite sweaty on the way out. I got back to the visitor center around 1:30 and found out there’s a shuttle to New Plymouth at 4, which is good, that way I don’t have to rely on hitching.
Of course when I got back to town the surf forecast changed and isn’t looking great, surf forecasts are worse than weather forecasts, but hopefully I’ll get out anyway.