"My son(10yrs) and I climbed up the Northern summit route heading off early in the morning 6.15am and summiting by Noon. We took longer than expect to descend but made it home by 6pm to the Camphouse hut which has hot showers and a full kitchen. The day wasn't without drama as a rock fall caused by some descending climbers hurtling past us, the weather was pretty good but the wind would occasionally gust with a cold misty content that had us pulling out layers of clothing only to take them back off when out of the wind or the sun came out. There were approx 40 climbers that day." — loganscott • Dec 28, 2023

"I set aside two days for Mt Taranaki as I've been told the weather is quite unstable in that region. On our first day it rained all day and the peak was constantly enveloped in a giant moving cloud. On our second day we had a sunny forecast with high winds. It had to do. Due to stomach issues I was having, we got a late start from the Egmont visitor center (NE approach) at 7:15am. We hiked through the rain all the way until Tahurangi Lodge, which took us 1.5 hours. After warming up inside, I went to take a pee and noticed that the weather had completely burned off. It was now sunny, but still windy. The summit was visible. There was snow from the lodge, so we strapped into our crampons from the very beginning and followed a gully up along the standard route, which was now covered in snow. The occasional orange pole sticking out through the snow indicated that we were on track. As we climbed large gusts of winds continuously struck us with hail sized shards of ice. The wind made it difficult for Asaka to even stand, and I recognized the conditions were too dangerous. We were not far off from the hut when I decided to send Asaka back and continue on by myself. Normally I wou..." — seancasserly • Oct 17, 2019

"We had October 13th and 14th to climb Mt Taylor during our honeymoon. Unfortunately, the weather forecast predicted high chances of precipitation for both days, mostly during the afternoon. Since we came all the way across the Pacific Ocean, we decided to give it a shot anyway. We started around 9AM on Sunday morning to get a head start on the weather. The trail markers say 6 miles (10km) to Double Hut, however my GPS said 5.5 miles. What ensued was a very chilly & overcast, yet enjoyable & gradual hike. There were waterfowl and rabbits about. We had a river crossing which made us take off our boots. Water levels were above my knees so Asaka crossed higher upstream. We reached camp before noon. Double Hut is a very nice hut with a fire pit, several mattresses, food hangs, a water source and a nice toilet. Asaka wasn't feeling good; a combination of jet lag and other things, so she slept almost the entire day. I spent time scouting out the following day's route, attempting a fire and organizing our packs. It rained ever so slightly in the afternoon, but nothing serious. Due to wedding distractions, I forgot to bring headlamps, rain pants, gaiters, a stove and a water filter, alth..." — seancasserly • Oct 14, 2019

"I misread meters as feet, thinking I was climbing a 2500ft mountain. Got to the top and everyone was like 'you absolutely American, you summited an 8261ft mountain' because I made a comment that it was colder at the top than I expected for a 2500ft peak. Genuinely not sure how I lived- it's because I don't get altitude sickness." — zemthings • Dec 22, 2018

"Left Christchurch around 4 pm arrived at the lake heron car park by 6, took us roughly 1 1/2 hours to double hut (1 river crossing). dinner, bedtime. we left the hut at 4 am the next morning making good progress up the river as there is very little snow yet. we followed the right/ southern branch of the swim river when we reached the ridge up to a big boulder on the true right of the river. there we hid our trail runners and warmed our feet before putting the boots on. gaining the ridge is pretty straightforward and a bit slippery, after about 200m the veggie patches lighten up and we had more and more snow patches so we decided to put on our crampons. the forecasted clouds weren't around yet. first stop was at point 1766 to welcome the sunset and negotiate the route. as the south facing slope shows signs of avalanche danger we decide to sidle up the north facing aspect of the ridge making good progress to point 2062. from there the way to the summit was quite straightforward. at the summit we were greeted with sunshine and very little wind. the hike out was long and quite stretchy as the snow got slushy at around 11am. once we got back to the riverbed we decided to stick to our ..." — ThomasDames • Jun 18, 2018