The wide expanses of the tussock plateau, typical of the park's landscape west of the big volcanoes. Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngaruhoe in the distance. Photo courtesy Ruapehu Tourism.

Geological setting
Tongariro National Park is located in the centre of the North Island, and was designed to include and protect the three great volcanoes Ruapehu, Ngaruhoe and Tongariro. The elevated ground created by the volcanoes and their ringplains form the Central Plateau, with altitudes of 800 m at National Park and Waiouru.
Volcanism in the North Island is related to plate tectonics, and the subduction of the Pacific Plate underneath the Australian Plate. Volcanic activity is located within a narrow strip of land (the Taupo Volcanic Zone) that stretches from Ruapehu in the south, across Lake Taupo and the Rotorua area, north to White Island in the Bay of Plenty. The Taupo Volcanic Zone has been continuously active in the last 2 m years, and has produced the most violent eruptions ever recorded in the world (Taupo 22,500 BC, also Taupo 186 AD). In Tongariro National Park the last major eruptive phase was Ruapehu in 1995-1996, which produced pyroclastic material as well as a series of lahars.
Read more in: Land & Wildlife > Volcanoes in New Zealand

Climatic conditions
Like elsewhere in New Zealand the prevailing weather comes from the west, cooler south-westerlies or warmer north-westerlies. On meeting mountains the moisture-laden air rises and cools. Vapour condenses and precipitation ensues. In Tongariro National Park like in the other mountain ranges of New Zealand the western sides receive the largest precipitation. This is especially visible on the south-western slopes of Ruapehu, covered in thick beech rainforests and bogs. Annual precipitation at Whakapapa Village is 2900 mm (114 in.) in 200 days of rain, and 4200 mm (163 in.) higher at the level of the ski slopes. On the eastern slopes a rainshadow effect can be felt. At the same altitude as Whakapapa, but directly in the lee of Ruapehu, Waiouru receives only 62 percent as much precipitation.
Most of the snow falls in winter, down to 1500 m (4921') or less, but heavy falls are not uncommon in December. Ruapehu carries several glaciers, currently in recession like many others in New Zealand and throughout the world.

Vegetation
  The two most distinctive types of vegetation cover in the park are the vast expanses of tussockland that cover the north-west quarter north of Whakapapa Village and up to an altitude of 1500 m (4921'), as well as the very sparse cover of isolated shrubs and tussock mounds of the Rangipo Desert. The park also includes large forested areas, in its south-western quarter as well as in the Pihanga area. Podocarp forest covers the Pihanga slopes, and in the south-west it is restricted to the lowest ground near Hauhungatahi and Ohakune. Otherwise the forests are essentially made of mountain beech. Lastly, shrubland is also well represented, mostly in the noth-eastern quarter east of Ngaruhoe and Tongariro. Such variety and distribution cannot be explained solely in terms of altitude, soils or moisture. The damage and interference caused by volcanism and human activity have also largely contributed to this pattern. In the northern areas, both east and west, the forest was extensively destroyed by the great Taupo eruption of AD186. In the west tussock now dominates where beech were slow or unable to recolonise. In the east the inability of the vegetation to recolonise at all the Rangipo Desert may be the result of a combination of factors such as more severe volcanic interference, strong dessicating winds in the rainshadow of the mountains, and human destruction by fire and grazing.

Wildlife
Tongariro National Park is home to a diversity of birds.
It retains a significant population of North Island brown kiwi.
In the forests the native tuis, bellbirds, moreporks, as well as the smaller grey warblers, fantails and silvereyes are common, while kakas and parakeets have become rare.
In the open fernbirds can occasionally be seen.
Southern black-backed gulls can be seen everywhere, up to the summits.
Streams and lakes retain a small population of the endangered blue ducks.

The park is also home to a profusion of insects, including many moths, and wetas.

Many exotic wildlife species are also present in the park: numerous birds, as well as opossums, mustelids (stoats and related), rabbits, rats and mice. Larger mammals include moderate populations of red and sika deer, wild pigs, and goats.