a little bit of this a little bit of that...part 2 tongariro

The next day we spent hiking on a trail that was actually well defined in comparison to the backcountry treks we had been doing the last couple of days. The first part of the hike was on a section of the tongariro crossing--one of the most popular day hikes to do in all of New Zealand. The negative being that at any given point there can be some 800 people doing the crossing making the hike feel less like an escape from civilization and more like standing in a neverending line at the grocery store while somewhere faint in the distance you can hear someone continually asking for a cleanup on aisle 4. At times it felt like I was in my very own where's waldo where everyone seemed dressed in the same outdoorsy clothes and hiking boots making differntiating my fellow hikers from the masses difficult--except for the fact that we had huge backpacks on while most of the dayhikers were outfitted with small dayhike bags. Surrounded for the most part by unfamiliar faces and redundant stories of past hikes and heavy sighing and gasps as the scenery contined to mystify and baffle and the scree and upward ascents took their physical toll on the hikers of all ages. Anyways 1/2 way through the hike we ended up walking off the beaten path in an effort to do some illegal camping for the night. the place we decided to set up our tents at was surrounded in this mud which can only be described as goldeny mustard colored reminiscent of a mud facial that jiggled under the weight of one's boot much in the same fashion as cellulite--beautiful imagery I know. That night I shared a tent with Dagmar while Pippa and Jen were in the other tent nearby. I ended up getting little if any sleep that night seeing as how the ground was completely frozen over. Dagmar believes in cross ventilation and by that I mean having both sides of the tent completely unzipped and open. Now mind you this woman is pregnant so I was doing my best to accomodate her...while she on the other hand made it her personal mission to tell me everything that was wrong with my camping gear. It began with my sleeping pad...now mine is your standard ridge rest...her's was the inflatable type that kept her 5 inches from the ground while mine caused me to sink into the ground--with no protection whatsoever from the cold. Now on to the fact that I was wearing 6 layers on the top, 6 layers on the bottom as well as 4 pairs of wool socks, a rain jacket, a fleece jacket, a pair of glacial gloves and a wool hat...now what was Dagmar wearing you ask? A cotton shirt and pants...and she spent the whole night reminding me of just how warm and toasty she was as I shivered for dear life...lovely woman isn't she?