WILD TRIPS
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is one of New Zealand’s best-known and most popular day walks. In summer, hundreds of international and local tourists tackle it each day. Most start on the Mangatepōpō side near National Park Village and finish at the Ketetahi car park on the northern slopes of Mt Tongariro. DOC figures show that 122,200 people walked the TAC in the 2019/20 season. Assuming a fivemonth window (October–April), that’s an average of around 800 people per day! Gone are the days when this slice of wilderness could be explored in relative solitude, at least in the summer season when the high-altitude sections of the track are reliably ice and snow-free.
I was
