Next week I’m hopefully going to this mighty peak to partake in my favourite sport-related pass time, sliding down the slopes of an active volcano on a length of fibre glass. Snowboarding is awesome, and I’ve been waiting with baited breath for the snow to start falling and the days to start lengthening (as they do around the time of maximum snowfall).

This year I’ll be able to approach the 300ka* Mt Ruapehu with a new understanding of it’s geology, as I speed by outcrops at 20-40km/h. “Look at the olivine in that andesite!”, I’ll say before hitting the lip of a ramp and pulling a wicked indy, making a smooth landing and impressing all the ladies (or, perhaps, not).

Here’s an interesting geological factoid: Mt Ruapehu’s crater lake is due to break it’s weak ash banks and wash down the Whangaehu River in an all-encompassing, all-destroying lahar this summer (that’s December-Feburary for us Southern Hemisphere people) once all the snow’s melted. The mountain will extract it’s bloody revenge!

*(ka is short for kilo annum, or thousand years and is used as shorthand for giving the age of a geological interest)