Looking down the Mangatepopo Valley from the Saddle. The small cone of Pukeonake stands in the middle of the picture. Photo NC.

Pukeonake is a small outlying scoria cone located near the bottom of the Mangatepopo Valley. The valley owes its present outline to the action of a glacier of the last ice age, whick peaked about 18,000 years ago. Within this landscape Ngaruhoe is much younger: approximately 2500 years old. As a result the valley is now progressively being filled by the growth of Ngaruhoe's cone (scoria and debris slopes here on the left), and by a series of lava flows of various ages (on the valley floor, brown and black). The volcanic ringplain stretches beyond Pukeonake.