The best view comes after the hardest climb

“May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.” -Harley King

It started out with a simple text.

Me:"What do you wanna do this weekend?"

Andrew: " Want to summit Mt. Taranaki?"

Me: "Sure"

And like that we were off! Making the 3.5 hr drive from Hamilton to Egmont National Park. We made a few more pit stops than usual. Rightfully so, as the landscape is quite literally something out of a movie. The Hobbit to be exact.

Finally approaching the base of Mt. Taranaki. We ended up sleeping at the base parking lot in our van as the Hut, which is a 2hr hike up, was fully booked. Meaning we were going to be doing the entire summit in one day. Waking up with sun, we fueled up with some oatmeal, packed our bags and prepped ourselves as this was going to be a grueling day. But we were excited!

Huffing and puffing we had made it to the hut in under 2hrs. Great timing for us. Just enough time for another refuel before we set off for the summit. The landscape and weather changing drastically with every new height climbed. We had rain, fog, high winds, sun and cloudy breaks.

As we gained altitude and made our way above the clouds, the air was crisp and the sun was shining. Noticing our fellow mountaineers were bundled up, and us, being in shorts and T-shirts, it was only a matter of time before we got asked "aren't you guys cold?" simply replying with a "Nah, we're Canadians! We don't get cold".

After 5 hrs of sliding on scree, scaling ridges, crossing snow covered creators and pulling our selves up volcanic rock, we had finally reached the summit! We were standing above the clouds, on top of a volcano. It was a mixture of "Oh my god I can't believe we just did that", burning muscles, 360 degrees of the most breathtaking views and a huge sense of accomplishment.