Maybe it’s because it’s on the ‘wrong’ side of the mountain; perhaps it’s because it’s just off the main track to other places further out; or it could be that it is so close to the road that people think they’ll get there some other time.
Of course, there’s always the possibility people don’t know it’s there at all.
Whatever the reason, somehow the Whakapapaiti Valley, on the south-western side of Mt Ruapehu in the Tongariro National Park, seems to be an almost forgotten valley.
Even when the park is teeming with visitors, both foreign and local – as it is almost all year round these days – the valley is never part of the main itinerary for those walking around or over any of the region’s three magnificent mountains.
And in spite of the national park being the oldest and most popular in the country, with close to a million visitors annually, the Whakapapaiti Valley always has that wonderful all-alone feeling about it.
Once in it, you can’t hear traffic, you can’t see town or farm-house lights, there’s no loud music, and there are very few people.
Yet it’s remarkably easy to reach, and it holds some truly spectacular scenery that can be seen in a comfortable day’s walk or enjoyed in a week of pleasant day tramps from an equally pleasant hut. Access to the valley is simple and in no way strenuous, though climbing back out can be a bit of a haul.
Halfway up the road from the Whakapapa Village to the skifields there is a small car-park to the right of a sharp bend, a park usually safe enough to leave a locked car for a couple of nights without the likelihood of it being broken into. But don’t ever leave any valuables in the car anyway – a change of warm clothing, a couple of nut-bars and a bottle of water is the most I’d want to let a car-thief nick.
From the roadway a tramping track sign points away south, towards a long skyline of rock and scattered tussocks that runs from the flank of Ruapehu right down into lowland beech forest. The sign says the Whakapapaiti Hut is 1¼ hours away, with the Mangaturuturu Hut a further 4½ hours on.
A poled track meanders from just beyond the sign away across gradually rising ground to the ridge, dropping into an occasional steep-sided gully that in winter is choked with snow and in summer sometimes carries a trickle of water. In the winter, that track can be a hard slog, with the tramper wading through thigh-high snow at times. But in the more temperate times of summer and early autumn it is a piece of cake, even for those who are only moderately fit and unused to hauling a weighty pack.
As it approaches the ridge, the track slants upwards, angling to the skyline and then crossing over between a huddle of car-sized boulders – and there, spread out in front of the visitor, is the Whakapapaiti Valley, laid across the landscape in a massive sweep of multiple browns: rock, tussock, scrubby growth, and volcanic sand.
To the east it is hemmed in by great curving walls of rock and lava, while westward and south long fingers of green beech forest claw their way up out of the lower country towards Ruapehu which glowers directly down into the valley. Through it all runs a series of smallish rivers, fed by creeks of snow-melt that pour over the rock walls in thin white billowing ribbons of waterfalls and spray.
The track runs down into the valley in a zig-zag that has thigh-muscles muttering rude things to the rest of the body on the climb out. But on the walk in, and part-way down the zig-zag, there is the inviting sight of the little Whakapapaiti Hut not much more than 25 minutes’ walk away, snuggled into a patch of tussock on the edge of a group of stunted beech and overlooking the Whakapapaiti Stream.
A while ago I walked in for a one-night stay on an early January morning, after buying an accommodation ticket at the park visitor centre. Elsewhere the national park was jammed with people – day walkers in groups, lines of visitors taking advantage of the Department of Conservation’s summer nature programme guided tours, the popular huts such as Mangatepopo, Ketetahi and Oturere jammed wall to wall with sleeping bags and packs, and crowds milling around the Whakapapa visitor centre.
But once over the ridge and on the zig-zag down to the Whakapapaiti Valley I might easily have been the only person left on the planet. I got to the hut in brilliant sunshine well before noon, dumped my gear on a bunk – the hut sleeps 22 comfortably, but it’s always a good idea to claim a bunk early – cut a bundle of wood for the evening cooking fire, made a quick brew of billy tea, and lunched outside in the streaming warmth in a world of my own. From my seat I could see a vast slab of the mountain, and there wasn’t another soul in sight.
In the afternoon, after scribbling my name in the visitor book, I took a small day-pack with water, scroggin and thick fleece, crossed the stream and headed up into the upper valley, where a waterfall flung itself 20 metres over a rock bluff into a deep pool hidden at the bottom of a steep, tussock-lined gully. The rocky walls were spangled with clusters of moss, mountain daisy, hebes, fern and, if one searched carefully, the odd edelweiss.
High above, massive hills of rock stood almost perpendicular, showing where molten lava had once oozed down the mountain and frozen into a huge wall.
On the return walk I noticed miniature sand-gardens imprinted with beautifully delicate circular art forms, created by the wind blowing drooping tussock stalks in sweeping motions across pools of volcanic sand. The colours and designs were exquisite, and I stepped carefully, not wanting to damage such perfection. By 5pm I was back at the hut, fully expecting it to be crowded with chattering university students from Germany, Norway, Canada, Japan, Britain and elsewhere. It was empty, save for the crepe paper decorations a small group had brought in to celebrate New Year a couple of days earlier.
Dinner was a splurge. I stoked up the hut stove and pigged out on good steak, instant sage and onion gravy, rich pasta and a pleasant bottle of good red wine, eating in the last rays of a sunset that washed the western face of Ruapehu in soft, golden light that had the snow-cap sparkling and the mountain’s outline razor-edged against the clear darkening sky. Only after it was full dark, and while I was watching in awe the fabulous show of stars in a pitch-black night, was the solitude broken, and then only by a lone Aussie tramper who wasn’t too sure where he was.
I shared mugs of hot tea with him, and chatted into the night, but he was gone at daylight next day, leaving me again in the mesmeric beauty of a huge valley no-one seems to know about.
So I think I’ll go back again sometime soon, and take another look.
Kingsley is a columnist with the Waikato Times in Hamilton. His Outdoors columns appear fortnightly and he has recently published a selected 25 columns in illustrated book form. A second book is due in June. Kingsley can be contacted at kingsley(at)accuwrite.co.nz