Day 30: Fox Glacier

Lucinda was rather surprised at our request for a 10am breakfast, but we loved the late morning and felt quite refreshed. We went for a quick hike down to Lake Matheson, which is featured in thousands of photos, with Mount Cook looming in the background (frequently reflected in the calm lake). It was drizzling most of the morning, so no views of the mountains for us, but it was still beautiful.

We joined an afternoon trek up onto Fox Glacier, since you need to be with a guide to go onto the glaciers, and they provide the crampons and other gear you need. It’s an hour and a half hike through the glacier valley each way, then an hour on the glacier itself. The valley is pretty remarkable, since you’re hiking in rain forest with only a shirt and shorts, while you can see the glacier next to you, less than 100 meters away. It’s one of only 2 places in the world with this combination, the other being Patagonia. The top of the glacier gets 40 meters (yes, 120 feet) of snow a year on average, which compacts down to about 10 feet of glacial ice.

Once you get out onto the ice, you definitely need a jacket and maybe long pants and another layer or two. Between the steps the guides carve out for you, the crampons, and the hiking sticks they provide (with metal spikes), it’s pretty easy to walk on the glacier, but I wouldn’t do it without a guide, given the deep crevasses and changing ice conditions throughout the day. The combination of the deep blue of the glacial ice, the clear ice that has begun to thaw, the white ice full of air bubbles, and the gray of rock fragments from landslides onto the glacier, it’s much more colorful on the glacier than you’d expect.

It started to rain as we climbed down from the glacier, turning into a hard rain as we hiked down, and a downpour just before we reached the busses back down to town. We were absolutely soaked when we got back to the B&B, but were thrilled to find Peter drawing a bath, clean clothes that Lucinda had laundered for us, and warm beds that we crashed into early.