Mt. Doom.

I've just gotten back from the Tongariro crossing with Ben.  It was a fine day yesterday to cross the saddle between Tongariro and Ngauruhoe.  The trail is up some steep rocky parts at times, and at other times it's on flat mud through the crater of an old volcano.  We departed at 8:30, and got up to the highest part of the trail at about noon, and we took our time.  The views were amazing, with Ngauruhoe being the main attraction.  It's the mountain that was "Mt. Doom" in the Lord of the Rings movies, and is sinister to climb, as it's all shale slag.  We didn't climb it.  I'd like to say it was because Ben didn't want to do it (I could blame his lack of adventure) but I really wasn't interested in doing it, nor did we have time to do so before our 4:30 pick-up.

The emerald pools were also quite beautiful, but they were extremely sulfurous, so I didn't hang around there too much.  We met a nice girl from Quebec that was going around the mountain, and we hiked with her for a while.  Ben noted that she was super hardcore, because her one of her daily treats was an apple.

I'm glad I did it; it's something I've wanted to do for a while.  I can cross it off the list.