My friend Alex and I headed off for a trip up Mt. Ruapehu. We got up really early for our climb, earlier than anyone else heading up the summit ridge that day as it turned out. We walked up from the Whakapapa car park, and stopped briefly at the warm shelters for the lift operators. As we headed up to the summit ridge the sun started to rise and we got an amazing sunrise and view of our surroundings. We could see Taranaki in the distance, and I have never seen it so clear. We were the first people up on the summit plateau that day.

We climbed up to just below Te Atuaa on the summit ridge. We took a few more photos and headed back down. We saw the first few other people popping up towards the summit. As we headed down we got fantastic views of Ngaruhoe and Tongariro, and it turned into a pretty hot day!

Winter snow had just started falling and so I headed up for the NZAC ice climbing meet. Unfortunately it was still a bit early in the season and so there wasn't tons of ice. My friend Helen and I went up there, and were doing quite a lot of work for the fantastic Tukino Alpine club lodge, so that took up a bit of time. We got out for a walk in the snow though, up towards Whangehu hut, a great little alpine hut that isn't that well known about.