If you want epic views of mountains hiking above the trees in an alpine, volcanic environment the Tongariro Northern Circuit is the NZ Great Walk for you.
This 3-4 day hike takes you up and over Red Crater, which at 1868m is the highest altitude point of any Great Walk in New Zealand, not to mention an active volcano! Unlike some other Great Walks which either start or end at sea level and climb to great heights in the middle, on this hike you will spend the entire time at 1000 metres above sea level above the tree line which means you're guaranteed constant mountain views when visibility is good!. That's not to say there isn't a substantial elevation gain in this hike, as you do ascend and descend many valleys, gaining/losing 1,900 metres across the 45km loop, just as much as you'll experience on any other NZ Great Walk.
The Tongariro Northern Circuit is unique to many of the other Great Walks in NZ. Firstly, it's one of only two Great Walks in the North Island (the other being the more remote Lake Waikaremoana), and it shares some of the hiking trails on the loop with other popular day hikes like the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and Tama Lakes (though that is not necessarily a good thing if you want to avoid crowds!).
One of the huts on the circuit, Waihohonu, is also shared with the Round the Mountain track that circumnavigates Ruapehu, whereas the Northern Circuit circumnavigates Ngauruhoe. This means that you are bound to see different groups of people during your hike, rather than just those doing the Circuit with you. And since you can walk the circuit in either direction, you won't always be sharing a hut with the same groups of people either like you do on the Milford Track for example.
If camping is your thing, you could bring a tent and book a campsite to stay beside each of the huts.
The Northern Circuit is located within Tongariro National Park, which was designated NZ's very first national park back in 1894. At the time it was only the fourth national park in the world to be established. The Park was also made a dual World Heritage site (one of only 29 in the world) back in 1993, so it is an incredibly special place to be able to tread upon.
The nearest towns are Turangi to the north-east (where we stayed the night before the hike) - 35 mins drive to Whakapapa, Ohakune (south-west) - also 35 mins drive to Whakapapa, and Taumaranui to the north-west - 45 mins drive to Whakapapa.
The Tongariro Northern Circuit is unique in that you can actually start the hike from 3 different locations, Whakapapa Village, Mangatepopo Carpark or even the Desert Road if you want to add an extra 5km in/out to join up with the circuit loop at Waihohonu Hut.
The elevation profile shows an undulating Day 1, the hardest climb and descent on Day 2 (up 700 metres, down 500m), a shorter, mostly downhill Day 3, and the longest day with a gradual climb and descent on the last day. We found the timings were all pretty generous, finishing each day well within the suggested times below. The total elevation gain/loss based on my Apple Watch tracking was 1,900m.
At the time of writing in the 2024/25 season, the fees per night for a NZ Adult are $44, International Adult $66 and children 50% of the adult fee. This is cheaper than some of of the other more popular Great Walks like the Routeburn, Milford and Kepler tracks which are more like $80-90 a night. That being said, the quality of the huts on the Circuit is not the same either, and the standard of hut varies hugely between the three available huts on the track.
If you plan to shorten the hike from 4 days to 3, then I recommend skipping Oturere Hut and continuing on to Waihohonu on Day 2. It wouldn't be wise to attempt the crossing over Red Crater later in the day if you are short on time, plus it's the smallest hut and a bit of a tight squeeze for space.
Mangatepopo Hut is only a 20 minute walk from the road end where the Alpine Crossing starts and it is the smallest of the huts on the Circuit sleeping 20, with a larger bunk room and smaller bunk room off a shared communal area, and two vault toilets a short distance away from the hut. These were not the nice flushing toilets we've been used to on some of the Fiordland Great Walks!
We were very surprised to discover that the funding for a hut ranger here was cut by the Department of Conservation in the 2024/25 season. The reason this hut was chosen is because local DoC staff can easily walk in to clean the hut, top up supplies etc with its close proximity to the carpark. However, the downside is that this hut is generally the starting point for the day that takes you up and over Red Crater (arguably THE most dangerous day on any Great Walk with weather conditions) so hikers currently do not have a hut ranger to advise them whether it is safe to go or not. There is some cellphone reception here, so you can get an up to date weather forecast to make a decision, but not everyone knows the best forecast to search for or how to make an informed decision on whether to proceed (I'll share more on this and our personal experience later).
The hut looks out towards Mt Ngauruhoe and the Devils Staircase up to South Crater, so if visibility is good you can at least see what current conditions look like to make a decision about proceeding with Day 2 (they weren't visible on the evening I took this shot!)
Prepare for the fact that the current Oturere Hut is TINY, especially given it is meant to house 26 people. The Department of Conservation actually reduced capacity to 24 for the 2024/25 season, but if you also had 14 people staying at the campsites, then trying to cram 40 people inside would be a nightmare! There are two small 6 person bunk rooms off the small communal living area with the remaining 12 bunks also in that living area. There are only 2 small tables which would seat 14-16 at a push, nowhere near enough space for a full house! The upside is that a new hut is due to be constructed in the next 1-2 years which will ease the capacity issues. The toilets are also quite a hike up behind the current hut, especially if you have to go in the middle of the night like I do!
The hut is at 1,360m elevation (the highest on the Circuit) and has views out the window towards Ngauruhoe and Red Crater where we had just descended from, and you can also see Ruapehu just a few steps from the hut though it was mostly behind the clouds till later in the day.
Waihohonu is by far the largest and best equipped hut on the Circuit (and in the entire National Park), sleeping 28. There is crossover here with hikers for both the Circuit and Round the Mountain tracks as well as hikers coming in from the Desert Road end using the hut. This is a relatively new hut constructed in 2010 and it has a HUGE communal area with ample seating and massive windows that look out onto both Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. There are 2 large drying racks, and even a solar hot water tap. It was a real treat to finish with this as our last hut on the Circuit.
Views from the deck of Ngauruhoe and from the helipad of Ruapehu, both with fresh snow!
Tongariro National Park is the highest elevation on the entire North Island and being positioned right in the middle of the island with no other mountains around for shelter, it bears the brunt of bad weather and can be incredibly windswept, changeable and downright dangerous. If you think I'm being dramatic, then the stark facts that 25% of NZ Search & Rescue operations occur here backs me up.
The forecast for our hike was for 4 days of solid rain and high winds which was pretty concerning and downright depressing before we began, however this was not what we experienced in reality, so I would say don't be put off, just be prepared for all kinds of weather, check the forecast to make informed decisions, and then you can be pleasantly surprised if it is better than forecast - in our experience it certainly was.
Before we started, we received what I believe to be poor advice from the Tongariro National Park Visitor Centre not to hike Day 1 between Whakapapa and Mangatepopo (the staff had said it would be terribly muddy and the stream crossings would be high) or Day 2 over Red Crater due to low visibility and high winds (we'd seen this would be a potential problem ourselves based on the forecast so we weren't surprised to hear this).
We therefore made the decision to driver over and park at Mangatepopo and walk the 20 mins into Mangatepopo Hut, but after talking to other hikers who had just completed Day 1 we decided to go back and do it, and it was not challenging or difficult at all. So, take advice but make your own decisions based on your abilities and comfort level.
The best weather forecast to check for Day 2 over Red Crater is the NIWA Weather Forecast. This site will issue an advisory if it is not recommend to make the journey, which will generally be due to high winds, or low visibility which can make it treacherous following the route markers. The top of Red Crater is extremely exposed along a narrow ridge, and it is quite possible to be blown off your feet. It is not wise to consider hiking over this section in wind gusts over 70-80 km/hr.
I also use Windy (which is usually accurate for the sustained wind and wind gusts).
This was the forecast that I downloaded at Mangatepopo Hut the evening before we went over Red Crater using NIWA and Windy for information on the wind gusts. Both forecasts agreed that if we could get up and over before 9am, we would avoid the worst of the gusts.
You can also get a Metservice forecast for Tongariro National Park which includes Red Crater conditions, including hazards and wind chill, we knew it was going to be pretty cold going over with a wind chill of -2.
Note: for 3 out of the 4 days we were on the Circuit, there were no day hikers on the 1-day Tongariro Alpine Crossing due to the low visibility, wind warnings and also snow conditions on Day 3. However, we still chose to make the journey with a very early start on Day 2, based on the fact we could see the top of the mountains when we set out, and that the forecast suggested we could get up and over Red Crater before the wind gusts became too strong (more on that in Day 2).
The bonus for us is that the bad weather meant we didn't have to share the track with the 2-3,000 day hikers who would normally be making the 20km Crossing, so we had the whole mountain to ourselves!
We had an initial false start mentioned above, dropping our packs into the hut, before making the call to attempt Day 1 after speaking to hikers who'd just completed it without any difficulty. I will say however that this section of the Circuit (after you leave the junction with Taranaki Falls track) is a noticeably lower quality track than what you'd expect on other Great Walks, with some seriously eroded sections though these are not that hard to navigate. There were no difficult stream crossings (which is what had mostly put us off based on the Vistor Centre advice) and it was not muddy at all despite the fact it had rained for the better part of the week leading up to our hike.
The initial part of the hike is along the Taranaki Falls Track loop (so you could choose to do this detour although you do also return close to the falls on Day 4 so we felt it made more sense to see it then). After crossing the river, the track starts to degrade in quality.
Below is one of the stream crossings we had to make, you can see it was a non-event. Most of the other streams were bridged and had very little water in them.
Below are some of the more eroded sections we had to navigate but nothing was too tricky, as plenty of others had paved the way with finding alternative routes around the edges of the slips.
The majority of the track is out among open waist-high vegetation so you can see for quite a distance, which means that when Mangatepopo Hut comes into view you can see it from a long way off (white building top left).
This was actually the rainiest day we encountered, and even then there were only a couple of short showers as we made our way across these valleys and we were basically dry again by the time we reached the hut.
As I mentioned earlier, we were up at 5.15 am and out the door by 6.30am to ensure we made it over Red Crater before the winds got too strong. We were pleasantly surprised to see Ngauruhoe fully visible as well as the top of South Crater as we departed, which also reassured us that the going should be good in terms of visbility.
It didn't take us long to walk up Mangatepopo Valley and before long we reached the Devil's Staircase, the longest climb you have to endure on the Circuit, with never ending staircases heading up the hill.
It doesn't take long before you are rewarded with expansive views back down the valley - if you look closely you can see the Mangatepopo Hut in the distance.
With a last push over the ridge, we found ourselves in South Crater, with sunshine breaking through the clouds and views of both Nguaruhoe and Tongariro on either side of us.
The laest enjoyable climb of the day was ahead, the ridge up to Red Crater. This is actually harder than going up Devil's Staircase as you do need to watch your step on loose rock, and it is a bit slick underfoot - I don't think I would want to come down this way!
Before long we'd reached the summit. We did NOT linger here as the wind was pretty strong and enough to make your lose your balance temporarily.
So it was off down the scree slope to Emerald Lakes, luckily this ridge is reasonably wide, as there was still plenty of wind gusts to make you really concentrate on planting your feet and poles firmly on the way down.
Once you turn off the Crossing and head right towards Oturere Hut, you actually skirt round the very bottom of one of the lakes, it is such an incredible view with the water colour combined with the steam vents and red/orange colouring of the crater behind.
The descent through the scree was EASY compared to the long slog down the Dragon's Tail into the valley. It was rocky and we had to concentrate hard on each step, but the expansive view of the lava flow down the valley made up for the slow going. You can see the track going off into the distance through another flat area to the top right of the image below.
And before long, we'd made it to the hut. This was by far the most physically demanding day, but not overly long by hiking standards at 4.5 hours. We spent the afternoon exploring the waterfall and river 5 minutes from the hut, and two of our group even got in the river above the waterfall for a swim! and I also headed back out at sunset to capture these shots.
The view below looks out over the top of the waterfall down towards the Desert Road, we could actually see vehicles travelling along the road, and you can make out some of the electricity pylons that span the length of the road.
The evening was beautifully clear with a crescent moon appearing above Ngauruhoe just as it got dark. We also saw 2 runners just before dusk who were running the Circuit in one day - they were about halfway at this point and aiming to finish in the middle of the night. After talking to them we discovered that one of the runners had run all 10 Great Walks in the past 9 days, incredible!
Waking up and experiencing 1-2cm of snow before we had even left the hut was something none of us were expecting in the middle of summer, but it was VERY magical. It also made me very thankful that we'd made it over Red Crater the day before in pretty good visibility, and it was such a contrast to the clear skies and sunny afternoon and evening we'd had the the day before.
The first hour of the walk we were putting one foot in front of the other in the snowy footsteps of the other group who left just before us, and the precipitation alternated between soft, vertical snow falling which was so pretty to walk in, and then the somewhat less enjoyable horizontal sleet to the face!
It didn't take long for the snow to stop and the clouds to start lifting to reveal quite a decent dumping on both Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe.
This third day is spent traversing several valleys as you gradually descend towards Waihohonu. Most of the day is in the open, apart from the last hour where you climb up a ridge through the forest, briefly enjoying the vista of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe from the summit of the ridge before descending back down again through the bush to Waihohonu Hut.
Two of our party braved the river for a swim, but they didn't last long declaring the water WAY colder than the waterfall at Oturere the day before. We also took the short 2.5km return track to Ohinepango Springs and filled up our water bottles from the source, it tasted so good!
Our final day was the last push back to the starting point and the longest day kilometre wise. On this day you are basically walking through the Tama Saddle between Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe. It doesn't have as much variety as some of the other days on the hike, but the elevation gain and loss is pretty gradual so you may not ever feel like you are slogging up big hills.
Just after setting off, we made the short detour to see the historic Waihohonu Hut (only about 10 minutes walk from the current hut). It was built in 1904, and is NZ's oldest existing mountain hut, the inside is very well restored with panels to give you information on its history.
The first part of the day is spent walking directly towards Ruapehu (you can see the Pinnacles dead ahead in the image below) before you turn 90 degrees and then traverse the Tama Saddle. We made the decision not to go to Tama Lakes since it was very windy, and we knew we all had a long drive home after the hike finished. We found the last section of track much busier with day walkers going to/from Tama Lakes and Taranaki Falls.
And just like that our 45km adventure was at an end. Despite a dire forecast with 4 days straight rain and high winds predicted, I think you'll agree that we got incredibly lucky. In fact, as rain goes apart from a couple of short showers on Day 1, there was no rain at all to speak of. Sure we got snowed and hailed on during the morning of Day 3, but that was far preferable to rain and only lasted an hour or so. Yes, it was windy but not windy enough to be dangerous or to stop us enjoying our time in the outdoors.
I found this the easiest Great Walk of the 4 I have completed so far even though the distance is longer than the Routeburn and about the same as the Kepler - part of that is probably due to the fact I was the fittest I've ever been for a Great Walk, and the new Aarn Park I was using which really prevented the sore neck and shoulders I have experienced on other hikes. None of the days will feel particularly long if you are staying the full 3 nights in the huts, and even the last day which is long kilometre wise isn't that demanding. Overall, a big tick from us!
Finally, enjoy this 7 minute highlight video as a good taster of what you can expect from this amazing and unique part of the country!
9 Tips for Hiking the Routeburn Track
Hiking the Milford Track: NZ's Greatest Walk
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