Premium Tongariro Alpine Crossing, geführte Wanderung

Highly recommend this tour! My husband and I booked this tour several months ago for our trip to NZ. We chose the Taupo pick-up + lunch options. The company has you call them 1 day before to discuss weather conditions, pick-up time, and preparation. The company really stresses safety. Upon pick-up the next day at our Taupo hotel, our guide, Stu, ensured we each had 1.5 to 2 liters of water and adequate layers of clothing, and confirmed if any of us had any health conditions that may impact our ability to complete the hike. The lunch that we were provided included a large burrito, apple, cheese/cracker snacks, chips, and waffle snack. Many snacks to ensure enough energy for the long hike. In total we had 17 hikers with 2 guides for the full day - each in the front and back. In addition there was a third guide with a private half-day tour. Unfortunately, two of the hikers were already having difficulty in the first phase of the hike and went back with the half-day, private tour folks. Again, safety was stressed. Our guide, Stu set a steady pace to ensure energy reserves not drained going up the mountain/Red crater. This was really helpful and made the trek up Red crater feel less overwhelming and doable. Doing down Red Crater was sketchy with loose rock, but our guides gave us good helpful tips on managing our way down. Hiking poles will be very helpful here. There were plenty of pit toilet stops along the way — just bring your own toilet paper. Once up and down Red crater to Emerald Lakes/Blue Lake, it’s a steady 6-7 mile downhill hike back to the car park. Overall ~12 miles total. Overall, highly recommend this company. Had a great time with this hike!

A trek not to be missed - especially for LOTR fans. Our guides provided great insights into the area, set a reasonable pace, and encouraged everyone to push themselves, but not at the expense of enjoying the experience. We would do it again in a heartbeat, once our legs have recovered - a lot of ups and downs on this trail.

We felt that the company were unprofessional. We had expected to do a full day's crossing but when we arrived there was one guide to two couples and the other couple were only booked on a half day. The excuse was that the weather was set to turn at lunch time. We are experienced mountain walkers and on reaching the south crater the weather was holding and we felt we could have gone on but had to turn back for the other couple. As partial recompense we were invited to a sunset hike from the chateau. Bearing in mind there was an expected change in the weather there was no assessment of preparedness of the group. We set off in warm sunshine but by the time we arrived at the waterfall a heavy hailstorm ensued and the other members of the group had no coats or warm clothing.