Hiking on Fox Glacier

We wanted to go on a guided hike on Grey Glacier in Torres del Paine in Chile, but the logistics of getting to the meeting point at 7am when we were a five hour hike away didn't allow us.  I promised Magge we would would do a glacier hike at some point, and the opportunity quickly presented itself in New Zealand.  Fox and Franz Josef, two of the many glaciers in this country, are among the most accessible in the world, with tours getting on the ice every day.  Only 20km from each other in Westland National Park, part of the Te Wahipounamu UNESCO World Heritage Site*, the glaciers are unique in that they descend into a rain forest only 300m above sea level and that they have actually been advancing for most of the last twenty-five years while most of the world's glaciers have been retreating.  I could go on and on about Fox and Franz Josef facts (the ice at the top of the glacier can move as much as 5m in one day, while the ice in the middle can move as much as 2m, about ten times more than the average glacier's speed), but you probably want to hear about the hike.

We chose to hike on Fox Glacier because we were told that it is less expensive, less crowded and takes less time to get on the ice.  It seemed like a no-brainer.  With a group of ten people, the guide took us to the terminal wall of the glacier and gave us the introductory spiel on the formation of the glacier.  The terminal wall is an amazing fifty feet high, and as much as we wanted to get close up and look into its caves and cracks, it is extremely unstable and unsafe.  Last year, a couple of tourists decided to ignore all the barriers and warning signs and made their way right up to the wall to get pictures, and got crushed by 100 tonnes of ice.  With that pleasant piece of information, the guide took us a half hour up the side of the valley so we could access the glacier from the side.

 The terminal wall; for scale, see the group of people at the left edge of the picture

View from the edge of the glacier

 Before getting on the ice

Fitted with crampons, we got onto the ice and spent the next four hours hiking and waiting for our guide, Jono, to cut steps into the ice.  I didn't think it was necessary to have nice steps any time we met an incline, but I suppose that's the difference between New Zealand and South America.  In New Zealand, you get ice stairs; in South America, you take what the hill gives you until your leg nearly falls off and the guide drags you down the mountain.  At one point, Magge offered the guide my step-cutting services, and he accepted despite my lack of formal training in the field.  I took his ice pick, carved four of the best steps we saw all day, and all of a sudden, I was the guide's favorite hiker.  That goodwill quickly disappeared ten minutes later, though, when I dropped my alpenstock (walking stick with a metal point) into a crevasse.  I'm still not sure what happened; we were all just standing around, again waiting on Jono to cut some ice, and the alpenstock just fell out of my hand.  It slowly slid down the slope as I cried, "No, no, no, no, no!", almost stopped just short of the crevasse, prompting a "Yes!", and then tipped over into the hole.  Luckily it got stuck on something and didn't plummet all the way down and Jono was able to retrieve it.  He didn't, however, ask me to cut any more steps.  I felt somewhat better later when another guy dropped his alpenstock into a crevasse as well.

How to take the fun out of a glacier hike: make it too easy by cutting steps everywhere

Showing the guide how it's done

 "Yeah, that's good, but swing through the hips more"

 Time to put on the raincoats; the weather held up pretty well, but in an area where it rains 290 days a year, it won't hold up for too long

We mostly stayed on the surface, taking in the views of the valley and peering into moulins (long holes in the ice), but our guide did find one feature under the ice we were able to explore.  There was a narrow tunnel roughly 20m long that everyone slid and crawled through, and seemed to be the highlight of the day for most.  We then made our way off the ice and onto firmer ground.  While I did enjoy the tour, it was too much waiting around while steps were cut and wasn't as challenging as I thought it would be.  I think the Waitomo cave trip spoiled us.

The ice tunnel

Water flowing into a moulin

I think this means swimming is fun here

Finished the day with a rainbow

*New Zealand surprisingly only has three World Heritage sites, with the New Zealand sub-antarctic islands and Tongariro National Park being the others. However, the Te Wahipounamu site is massive, including all or parts of Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, Westland/Tai Poutini National Park, Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park. At approximately 26,000 square km, it represents nearly 10% of the total area of New Zealand.