As the crow flies

Through Mordor

Yesterday I trekked through the desolate wasteland of Mordor, beside the ominous Mt. Doom. We went on a hike called the Tongariro Crossing which passes through Tongariro National Park which is where parts of Mordor was filmed for LOTR.

It was an excellent hike and definitely worth getting up at 5:15 to do. The thing I first noticed was that there was no vegetation over a couple inches on the entire hike (except for the last little bit). We started off with an overcast sky, but the weather did improve on and off during the day. The clouds were constantly moving, revealing and hiding Mt. Doom and the other surrounding Mountains. I would call Mt.Doom by its real name if I could spell it - Ngogonthe or something. As it is spring over here, the mountains still had snow on them, in striped pattern which made it even more interesting. Its hard to explain the landscape and why this hike was so good, only through being there can you understand it.

At the summit of the hike, if you were cold you could sit on the ground which was heated by thermal activity. That was neat, in addition to the wavering steam rising from cracks in some of the craters. This hike is probably one of my favourite hikes.

posted by Aaron @ 5:27 PM