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)