Merry Christmas from Fox Glacier

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Queenstown to Fox Glacier
December 24, 2006

After a night’s stop in Queenstown to do laundry and reclaim our luggage, we hit the road and headed west. We had to climb up out of the valley, and pushed our little rental car to it’s limit! We made it all the way out to the Tasman Sea in a couple of hours. We stopped briefly in Arrowtown, an old gold-mining town and then again in Wanaka. We followed river and lake valleys all the way out and the views were beautiful once again.

That evening we checked into a very nice B&B in Fox Glacier and got a good night’s sleep to prepare for our next adventure… heli-hiking Fox Glacier!

We awoke to a cold front forming misty clouds in the valley and over the glacier. After a quick brekfast, we headed to the guiding depot to check in for our helihike and were told that it was on, but that it might have to be shortened if the weather continued to degrade. Before climbing into the helicopter we were outfitted with boots, crampons and raincoats. The flight up over the glacier was breathtaking. There were deep crevasses and ridges throughout the lower and upper ice-falls and our helicopter pilot took us down over a waterfall that flows right under the glacier. We landed in a flat area mid-way up the glacier, strapped on our crampons and headed out for our hike.

What a wet adventure! It rained the entire time, but it was great. We explored bright blue crevasses and ice caves. We even slid through narrow ice tunnels! We said we needed to celebrate a white Christmas… and we did!

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Photos

Merry Christmas
Did we have more snow than you?

Fox Glacier
The classic shot of Fox Glacier

The beginning of our helihike
Our helihike began with the heli part first. We booked the earlier flights because a nasty bit of weather was brewing and threatening to ground the choppers.

Foreshadowing the remainder of the day
The moist air off the Tasman sea rises up this valley and deposits 17,000 mm of rain every year.

Airborn toward Fox Glacier
Off toward the glacier. Actually, we weren't in this actual copter - stunt doubles were used for this shot.

Our team
Our team making its way across the top of the glacier.

Glacial formations
We landed on a very active part of the glacier - a few metres of movement every day results in interesting formations.

Glacier Cave
One of the many beautiful caves we encountered on our walk

Don't step on my hand
Tom making his way through one of the glacier caves.

Tom trying not to get stuck
Checking out another ice cave.

Small ice tunnel
White light consists of all colours of the rainbow. Blue light bends (refracts) better than the other colours and is therefore able to leave the ice better. This makes the ice blue and is the reason the sky is blue.

Tom
... this time face first.

A small crevasse
A crevasse with a few clouds gathering high in the valley

The front approaches
We kept an eye on these clouds. If they dropped much lower the choppers would have to extract us early from our glacier walk.

The surrounding valley
A rain forest sits at the bottom of the glacier but the valley walls have a very Lord of the Rings feel to them.

The front moves in
The warmer moist air from the Tasman sea created interesting cloud formations along the walls of the glacier

Tongue parasites
Looking up the tongue of the glacier

Say Aaaahhh.
The tongue of the glacier as seen from our helicopter landing pad

Wispy clouds
Wispy clouds settle at the top of the glacier's tongue

The weather moves in
These clouds created a dramatic effect but also brought in a solid amount of rain.

The rescue copters arrive
After a couple of hours of rain and the approach of some moist air from the Tasman Sea, we were extracted off the glacier.

Fox Glacier from the helicopter
Fox Glacier as seen through the rain streaked helicopter windows.

Comments

[Steve D.]

Spectacular! I envy you this adventure. Well done!