Mount Ruapehu Crater Lake and the Coming Lahar of Hot Acid - 2.7.07 (part 1)

[leroy jenkins]

Very cool.

Feel free to post any more interesting stuff you get to see doing whatever it is you do.

[MeatPuppet]

That's not cool at all.


How acidic is 1? Melt your face off? Burn? No fishies?

You wouldn't want to go for a swim. That guy was nuts.

Cool TR Lane. I'll be looking forward to another one when that dam gives way.

[intro]

looks awesome. thankfully my house in kune is out of the lahar path.

so, anyone else skiing there this winter?

[deepsquat]

Excellent post, thanks.

I'm surprised the lake has lasted as long as it has, I guess it's been all the low-snow years.

[powstash]

one of the best NSR threads ever. I actually learned something - incredible.


thanks for posting

[sar13]

Awesome TR Lane. Definitely keep us posted.

I had one of the best spring skiing days ever at Whakapapa in Sept., '99 crappy rental skis and all. Perfect corn on the upper mtn and natural half pipes all over the place. I have a poster of mt Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe on my office wall. Such a cool place.

[Viva]

Me likey!

Lane, I take it that the NZ gov. policy is to let nature take its course? In some states here, I can see them trying to drain the lake, raise the pH, etc. to mitigate any damage and protect the myriad of special interests.

[skimoore]

That. Was. AWESOME!

[Lane Meyer]

Me likey!

Lane, I take it that the NZ gov. policy is to let nature take its course? In some states here, I can see them trying to drain the lake, raise the pH, etc. to mitigate any damage and protect the myriad of special interests.

Yeah, it's not so much that as the mountain is in a World Heritage-level National Park, and moreso that to the Maori people, it is a sacred place. They discussed mitigation options for a while, including draining the lake through a tunnel, bulldozing the dam, etc. but in the end decided that the only thing to do was to let it do it's thing on it's own time. There's really not that much in the way downstream, it's not at all like Indonesia where tens of thousands of people LIVE in the lahar path.

The low precip. amounts over the last few years have definitely prolonged this lahar...they were saying it was imminent (based on forecast winter precip amounts) when I got here in '05.

[Roo]

LAHAR!

[jrbd]

Post-Lahar.

Awesome stuff, Lane, and one of the best thread titles ever.

[Ubersheist]

<--- so jealous. That was rockin'. Seiche waves. Cool!

[Lane Meyer]

It's happening.

http://stuff.co.nz/3997148a19715.html

[spar]

Lahar heading down Mt Ruapehu
Posted at 1:45pm on 18 Mar 2007
The Regional Council has confirmed that Mount Ruapehu's crater lake has burst, sending a lahar, or mudflow, down the western side of the mountain.
Alarm warnings went off on the rim of the crater lake late on Sunday morning, and civil defence authorities activated their lahar emergency plan.
A helicopter with scientists on board has been flying over the mountain to check the situation.
Council chairman Garrick Murfitt says he received the news as soon as the alarms went off.
Mr Murfitt says the Desert Road has been closed, along with all access roads to the mountain.
Earlier this month, the lake level was 1.5 metres below the top of the unstable tephra dam, which forms part of the crater rim.

I wonder if Lane is following in the chopper?

[G]

Be careful Lane, They'll probably find some way to blame this on you.

Bummer you're not there to see it.

[spar]

just reported that the lahar is travelling down the Whangaehu River and the front of it has passed the tangiwai bridges without damage - high river levels carrying lots of debris picked up fom the banks

[G]

Wouldn't mind skinning up someday to make some turns down that face:

That's a great run, and goes on forever. It's easily accessed from a lift, with minimal hiking.

This photo also shows the exact location of the start of that enormous 2003 avalanche that has been posted about many times on this board, including my TR here.

[skiberly]

one of the best NSR threads ever. I actually learned something - incredible.


thanks for posting

i agree. especially after reading all that TPS crap.......f-that.

wow can't believe it spewed! no shit?

i skied ruapehu once, and looked into that cauldron of nastiness. the kayaker looks crazy -- is he taking samples?? we look for microbes in crazy ass places like that.......traveling for thesis work rocks

[jerr]

i just heard a rumour that the roads around Mt Ruapehu Have been closed for an expected laha; resulting from a crater lake breech?

Edit: breaking news: I'm totally late to this party.

I've just watched the news and I can't believe they didn't have a camera set up on it? The certainty of it happening multiplied by the likelyhood of it looking good means that should have been a gi'me. Lame...

[spar]

the first image is the flowmeter in the whangaehu river in normal summer conditions
followed by todays lahar and then what it looks like now.

if I'm reading the flowmeter results properly, it peaked at 655cumecs or about 164 thousand gallons per second

[spindrift]

AP/Yahoo reports coming out. Check out the video link

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/...aland_mud_flow

Kind of reminds me of the Toutle when St Helens blew...

edit - article with some visual aids: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/marlbor...7336a6422.html (repeating the visual aid in post#1 but with some interesting commentary) pretty cool.