After a bit of a shaky start – I was up there the weekend of the tragic rainstorm about 6 weeks ago! The snow season is going gangbusters with a 2m+ base, and lodge bookings are going gangbusters as well. Weekends are steadily filling up about 3-4 weeks out, and unfortunately we’re needing to turn people away. This is the year that ‘you snooze you lose’ has some bite to it!
Overflow to other lodges
If you do miss out on WTMC lodge, we have overflow arrangements with other lodges close by. Please contact Mike at for further details. You need to go through me so you can access any reciprocal member discount and to make life easier for the other Lodge booking officers. They’re all volunteers, just like Eric our Booking guy is – they’re doing us a favour so we want to make their lives as easy as we can.
Thanks Eric!
While we’re at it we should thank Eric for the tireless effort he puts in to running the booking system and taking manual bookings every week, as well as smoothing out a variety of hassles and complications. It’s a thankless task with many logistical challenges and a relentless schedule, and he does a great job of it. Every time you throw your sleeping bag onto your assigned bunk, Eric’s put in a significant amount of work to get you there.
Van trips in September October
This is where I’d normally be spruiking van trips on 6/7 Sep and 20/21 Sep, but there’s no need to because they both filled within about 3 hours of opening them up. We’ll take a few weekends off for the school holidays and the next van trip will be in 11/12 October. There’ll also be a fairly special Labour Weekend trip. We’ll post something in the forum when bookings open for these, so watch out for it.
Sep 13/14 Families trip
Marg and Nick are organising the family trampers’ trip for this weekend – I can see there are about 5 or so spots left if you have some kids that you’d like to be in a supportive fun environment. Give a yell for more details about this great family friendly weekend. Of course, you can take your family to the Lodge anytime!
After the snow season
We’re already looking to what happens when the lifts shut down and the skis and snowboards get put in the loft for summer.
Ray Morgan is running an epic Mountain Bike trip on 15/16 November – hitting tracks like the 42nd Traverse, Fishers Track and Old Coach Road. Tongariro is a MTB paradise so watch for that trip on the trip sheet or contact Ray direct for that one (he’s usually around on a Wednesday evening if you want to chat to him). Talk to Mike at if you don’t have Ray’s contact details.
And, over Christmas/New Years we’ll be running an Open Lodge again – no booking no hassle. Just turn up either with cash, or a credit card and a 3G phone to pay online, and stay for as long or as short as you feel like. Last year we had over 20 revelers who saw in the New Year at Ruapehu as well as a steady stream of people breaking their journey or coming up to watch the sun set behind Mt Taranaki from our deck. It was too much fun not to do it again! We’ll confirm dates closer to the time, it’s likely to be late December and the first part of January.
We are going to reduce summer rates again for the 2014/2015 summer season to make the Lodge even more attractive for you to use, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for a base to explore Tongariro National Park.
But enough of summer, let’s make the most of that fresh snow while we can! See you up there.