I wrote two days ago about having arrived in Fox Glacier and hoping for good weather. Well, I really couldn’t have asked for anything better–for two days, I’ve had brilliant sunshine. The clouds have been completely clear of the mountains in the mornings, but they always build up in the afternoon due to convection clouding over the glacier. Overall, it’s been a fantastic few days, and generally the complete polar opposite to Cristina, Megan, and my last visit here in 2005, when it rained so hard that we could only walk to the glacier, not on it, because of falling boulders.

Yesterday, I went on a full-day glacier walk with Fox Guides. We reported at 9.20am, excited that it was not raining in a place renowned for its ~200 days of rain a year. After they got us all geared up–I was fortunately allowed to wear my own boots, rather than rubbing blisters in a pair of boots that only marginally fit–we drove down to the glacier, which is about 6 or 7 kms out of town. At the entrance to the road leading to Fox, they stopped and let us out of the bus to take pictures of Mount Tasman, the second highest mountain in New Zealand, because they guaranteed that we wouldn’t be able to see it through the cloud by the end of the day. They were right.

From the car park, we walked for about an hour and a half across rocks ground into pebbles by the glacier and up 600 steps through rainforest. Even three years later, it struck me as funny that we were hiking through a temperate rainforest to get to a giant slab of ice. The walk hadn’t changed much since Cristina, Megan, and I did it last, but I think I was in much better shape for it this time!

Once we reached the ice, we were given optional wooden hiking poles and crampons to put underneath the arches in our boots (and we had to tuck our pants into our socks to stop them from getting ripped up by the crampons, which made us all look like a very fashionable group!). From there we headed onto the ice, where we stayed for over three hours. We walked a fair distance and eventually found ourselves as far up as we were safely allowed to go, since we were verging on ice fields full of large ice boulders and even bigger gaping holes. It was such a different experience to walking on land (as would be expected). For one, we had to walk completely differently. There was no crab walking down hills, putting feet sideways to try to skid downwards. Feet always had to be pointing forwards, because the crampons gripped on a lot more than you would expect without prior experience with them. I managed to keep my grip most of the time and didn’t fall down any massive crevasses, contrary to what some people would expect of me!

A funny incident occurred when the guide (John) decided to line us up so we could stand by a massive hole, one-by-one, and look down it while he was holding on to us, since it was “a bit bigger than I would like.” I was at the end of the line with a guy named Nick, and John told us we could go stand in between a few ice walls (pictured to the right) and take pictures. Nick made it in and out of the little cave just fine, so I handed him my camera and tried to do the same. Unfortunately, what looked like ice was actually not, and I suddenly found myself sunk knee-deep in icy water…and so did the lady behind me, because the hole happened to be U-shaped so all the water came spraying out of the other end! Luckily, water warms up relatively quickly once it’s found its way into your boot. John took advantage of my slight clumsiness to point out the next time we walked by a big hole that “for all Americans here [I was the only one], this is a hole.”

The trip took about 6 1/2 hours all told, and I didn’t think it was particularly physically taxing except for the walk up to the face. John might have thought otherwise, since we often had to wait while he wielded his ice pick to create stairways over mini ice mountains and into valleys. The landscape was unrivalled by anything I have ever seen before, and I was left in awe after we scaled each new wall and found a whole new landscape of crevasses and boulders (and the occasional blow-up penguin) waiting for us. Even though it was a bit overpriced–and why wouldn’t they overprice it, given that they are the only guide company in town?–I enjoyed every minute of it, even when I was knee-deep in ice. It would be really interesting to do a heli-hike, since they hike much closer to the neve (snow catchment area), so they get to see snow and ice caves and such, but at $330, it’s also a bit pricey. Same with the skydive, which takes you on a scenic flight around Mt. Cook/Aoraki (New Zealand’s tallest mountain) before they throw you out of the plane…all for $295 plus $175 for a video.

This morning I biked 6kms down to Lake Matheson with Nick, just as the sun was coming up over the mountains. Lake Matheson is the lake pictured in pretty much every postcard in New Zealand. It perfectly reflects Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman on a good day, and this morning was a good day. I know Cristina and Megan are going to kill me, but two of the pictures in this post (the first one and the one to the right) are from the lake; it was absolutely gorgeous. Even though it was slightly hazy, the water at Reflection Island–a signposted 50 minute walk around the lake–was completely calm. Just beautiful, and it made me not mind the fact that I had to roll out of bed at 7am to get there!

The full gallery from my Fox Glacier hike and Lake Matheson can be found here.