Ruapehu offers a slice of tramper's paradise

John Channon (left) and Brian Sixtus scramble over a stream.

While the Tongariro Northern Circuit is one of the Conservation Department's elite Great Walks, don't talk down the nearby circuit around Mt Ruapehu.

It's a great walk, too, and provides a compelling experience of Tongariro National Park.

The Round the Mountain Track showcases the varied volcanic landscapes and alpine vegetation on the flanks of the active volcano Mt Ruapehu.

It's a more remote alternative to the northern circuit but look at what's on offer - diverse landscapes ranging from mountain beech forest, tussock country and alpine herb fields; glacial river gorges and gushing waterfalls; and the Rangipo Desert with its wind-sculptured sands and rock.

A Wanganui Tramping Club group recently completed the 66km circuit and despite less-than-ideal weather was enchanted by the forces that have forged this wild and beautiful landscape over hundreds of thousands of years.

Our walk begins at Whakapapa Village and crosses tussock and scrubland to new Waihohonu hut, passing Taranaki Falls, the Tama Lakes and the historic Waihohonu hut.

Next day takes us onto the eastern side of the mountain through the Rangipo Desert to Rangipo hut. While this area gets too much rain to be truly classified as a desert, it is an amazing landscape of deeply scoured water courses, wind-sorted sand dunes, gravel fields churned over by frost action and stripped ash beds.

High points include visiting the Ohinepango Springs and crossing the lahar-prone Whangaehu River.

Rangipo hut, most easily accessed from the Tukino Rd, provides breath-taking views of the Kaimanawa mountains and we can see cars moving along the Desert Rd.

The next leg to Mangaehuehu hut begins with a traverse of the forbidding Wahianoa Gorge and eventually we enter beech forest. The Taupo eruption of some 1850 years ago destroyed the forest except on sheltered southerly slopes such as above Ohakune.

Mangaehuehu hut to the Ohakune Mountain Rd, via the Waitonga Falls, crosses Rangataua lava flows. From here trampers face a tedious walk of a few kilometres up the road to where the track begins again into the Mangaturuturu Valley, via the Cascade rock scramble.

After a night in the Wanganui Tramping Club's snug Mangaturuturu hut, the section to Whakapapaiti hut, after passing Lake Surprise, is muddy and full of stream crossings and shutes.

We decide the track is not up to scratch for a World Heritage Area but agree its erosion-prone nature provides maintenance issues.

Our trek ends with a walk down the delightful Whakapapaiti Valley to Whakapapa Village.
We experience rain on five of our six days, but that doesn't dampen our enthusiasm and appreciation for an area which is truly described as a walker's paradise.