Climbing Mount TeAroha

Firstly, I must apologize for not keeping up with the blog. I can't believe I've let it slide for three weeks! Also, I know some of you are following it regularly and I've let you down this month.

I have several things to post, so I'll start with a tramp that I went on with some co-workers on May, 16th.

A few people in my complex at work are avid hikers, ready to drive to a nearby trek at a moments notice. I was included in their latest adventure. We ended up gathering a group of seven together for a visit to the Kaimai (pronounced CAr-my) Mountain Range. The plan was to hike Mt. TeAroha (950 meters) for a spectacular view of the Waikato plains, Coromandel Peninsula and Tauranga Harbour. On our decent we planned to take a few side trails to the Tui Mine ruins, which were old silver and copper mines.

That morning Kumar picked me up and we drove west from Hamilton, through the highly productive dairy pastures that makes the Waikato some of the most productive dairy land in the world. The low-lying pastures was once a huge swamp, until the European settlers introduced it to modern drainage. Now, lush green rye grass produces thousands of kilograms of dry matter with the help from a little fertilizer and several meters of amazingly fertile volcanic ash that was spewn across the region around 100 ad. Kumar, Bob, Erin, Andrew, Andrea and I met at the base of the Mountain, in a town of the same name. Kumar, Bob and Andrew shuttled two vehicles to the other end of the trek while the rest of us grabbed some coffee from a nearby restaurant.

Above is a view of the town TeAroha from about a third of the way up the mountain. The trek soon led us into a rain forest full of ferns and other plants that I had never seen. There were ferns of every shape and size. Even several varieties of tree ferns that were up to 15 or so feet tall. The only one that I was able to identify was the silver fern. It is a tree fern species with a striking silver color on the underside of it's leaves.

We stopped occasionally to learn the name of a native plant from Bob, who was an expert. I also used these stops to catch my breath. About half way to the top we ascended into the clouds. The wind picked up and soon the mist saturated our clothes. So much for the wonderful view from the top. On the way up we passed a couple, and the lady said "apparently there is an amazing view from the top, but I have been here 6 times and all I've seen are clouds". At about 1:00 we finally arrived at the top. My stomach and my legs both told me that it was time for a rest. We took time to eat our lunch on the top and enjoy the solitude that the mountain offered.

On the way back down, we descended from the clouds and began hiking though the old mining ruins. They are long abandoned and for the most part overgrown. Along the trail we would occasionally find a fenced off mineshaft that descended into the mountain. Occasionally we would also notice rails jutting out of the side of the mountain and rusty old abandoned equipment. It must've been amazing to see the mines in full operation.

Near the end of the trek, we came upon a huge dammed area with a mud bottom. Apparently it was common to extract the minerals from the rocks using cyanide. The dam now served the purpose of keeping the cyanide enriched sludge from sliding down the mountain and landing in the town. Now I've never been a huge fan of the EPA, but now I believe that they certainly may play a somewhat vital role in protecting our environment. If only they could come up with better ways to do it.

At the end of the hike, we changed out of our moist muddy clothes and headed back to town for a well deserved early dinner, then back to Hamilton to start the week all over again.

It wasn't until the next day that I learned of a good trout stream only 20 minutes from where we had hiked....next destination: Karanghake Gorge, armed with my fly rod.