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                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Photo Gareth Eyres - NZ Tourism
 

          Over the years I’ve walked glaciers in various parts of the Swiss and Austrian Alps, but until recently I had never been on the vertical parts, tip-toeing among the crevasses, pillars and ice caves. But last March I visited this world—on the West Coast of New Zealand’s longest and most accessible river of ice, the Fox Glacier. I joined about a dozen other folks of all ages—most with no prior glacier or mountaineering experience—for an improbable 3-hour hike in the remote middle of this slowly moving, grinding, cracking ice flow.

Photo Location: about a mile up, and within sight of 10,000’ high snowcaps and the Tasman Sea,
the ocean that separates the West Coast of New Zealand from Australia, 1,000 miles to the west.
Photos in this article © Home At First, except where otherwise credited.

          The morning began under luxurious coverlets at Home At First’s very popular Westland Lodge about an hour north of Fox Glacier. Climbing out of bed was easy, though—the promise of hosts Grant and Bev Muir’s famous breakfast was an inspiration that made my stomach talk.
          I would have enjoyed luxuriating an extra day in the care of this extraordinary New Zealand couple, who somehow manage to find time to be perfect hosts while also managing their sizeable elk and deer ranch (Grant) and teaching a full day at the local elementary school (Bev). But an adventure

Home At First's popular Westland Lodge.

awaited.

          Highway 6 is a major road in New Zealand, running the length of the South Island, primarily along the west coast, from Blenheim in the rich Marlborough wine producing area of the north to Invercargill on the island’s Antarctica-facing southern coast. Along the way Highway 6 passes through some of the greatest of New Zealand’s fabled South Island scenery: the rugged mountains southwest of Marlborough, the active earthquake canyons leading to the sea, the dramatic West Coast itself with magnificent ocean vistas and sudden stunning glimpses of snowcapped alps.
          The road is good, permitting easy driving at 60 mph, with enough curves to make things interesting and keep the scenic surprises coming. Among the surprises are several one-lane bridges—some of them of the 100-yard variety, but others over a

The Southern Alps rise over 12,000'
from the beaches of Westland.

quarter mile in length—which cross numerous rocky channels where the melt-water of the Southern Alps and the run-off from the Westland rain forest enter the flood plain, heading towards the Tasman. Some of these streams are noted fishing creeks and rivers drawing fly-casting sport fishermen from around the world. At least one flows into broad Okarito Lagoon before entering the Tasman. The lagoon is the scenic breeding grounds of the rare white heron. Little Okarito village—maybe a dozen houses—has a shop with an excellent selection of Maori crafts and artwork, especially jewelry made out of the

          There are two great accessible glaciers in the Westland National Park. They descend the west flank of the Southern Alps dropping about 9,000 feet in about 8 miles, carrying the compressed snows from the highest of the Southern Alps westward to the Tasman. The Franz Josef Glacier, about 12 miles north of Fox Glacier, is reachable just beyond Okarito. Both glaciers have become cottage industries of tourism. Both empty into moraines (despite a few ebb years, Fox Glacier has been principally advancing since 1985) above namesake hamlets of motels, souvenir shops and adventure tour operators.
          Our glacier hike arrangements were made with Alpine Guides Fox Glacier Ltd., which operates Fox Glacier Guiding out of a good-sized storefront of shops and offices like something you might find in the American West or the Canadian Rockies. Fox Glacier Guiding sells souvenirs, clothing and specialty gear for hiking and climbing at their Hobnail Shop in Fox Glacier and the Glacier Shop in Franz Josef Glacier. The clever retailing in these shops gets you coming and going. We saw folks buying gear prior to their glacier adventures, and the same folks buying souvenirs

Fox Glacier descends 8,000' in
8 miles from its snow source by
New Zealand's highest mountains
to its terminal moraine in the
 Westland rain forest at
250' above sea level.

 immediately afterwards.
          The busiest counter at the Fox Glacier Guiding building was the check-in counter for their many guided glacier experiences. Mike and Carrol Browne, directors of Alpine Guides Fox Glacier Ltd., have created a menu of adventures with something for everyone and almost every pocketbook. The most basic and least expensive adventure is a two-hour "interpretive" walk to the lower end of the glacier, costing about NZ$45 for adults and NZ$30 for kids 8-15. On the other end of the scale, Fox Glacier Guiding offers a NZ$2995 8-day Mountain Ascents Course to teach technical mid-range mountaineering skills.
          Our adventure was one of Fox Glacier Guiding’s most popular offerings, the Flying Fox Glacier Helihike. This 3-hour experience costs NZ$395/adult (kids from 9 years old permitted, but pay the same as adults), and requires basic fitness, agility, and no fear of flying.

A red-and-white chopper
appeared, rotated once,
and softly put down on
the concrete landing spot.

          From Fox Glacier Guiding’s clean, modern headquarters a less-than-modern, less-than-clean bus transported us about 5-minutes to a one-room cinder block building on the flood plain flats outside of town. Here we traded in our shoes and socks for warmer, woolen socks and sturdy if well-used hobnail boots. Our guide urged us to quickly put on our borrowed footwear and join him outside by the helipad. Within 5 minutes a bright red-and-white chopper appeared, rotated once, and softly put down on the concrete landing spot. Quickly the pilot’s door opened and he helped his five passengers clamber out. As soon as they came through the gate by the blockhouse, five of us were shepherded to the helicopter. Without backpacks and cameras, we were helped into the chopper. We were shown how to belt ourselves in and how to put on our headphones so we could speak with our guide-pilot. Then our cameras and backpacks were handed up to us and the pilot himself climbed in.
          The rotors gained rpm, and it became noisier. The

machine wanted to leap into the air. The pilot hurriedly  requested and received clearance. We levitated maybe six feet, and spun half a rotation towards the mountains. Then our nose dropped, the rotors went into full steam ahead and we raced away from our cinder block airbase. The weather was cloudy, with some broken patches showing blue sky. Visibility was excellent, but there was a ceiling at about 8,000-9,000 feet, hiding the great peaks of the Southern Alps, Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook. We followed the rocky streambed of the Cook River east, over a shoulder and then over the moraine to the base of the Fox Glacier, which formed a Big S on its way uphill and into the clouds.
          A continuous stream of chatter came over the phones—some between pilot and base about future shuttles he needed to plan that day, and some between pilot and passengers, as we got the blow-by-blow of the remarkable environment we suddenly found ourselves in. Tail up so we could readily see out of its Plexiglas nose, the chopper swung from side to side. Like a bumblebee in a field of flowers, it shunted in stuttering flight to whatever caught our attention. We explored the steep rock embankments which contain the glacier. We soared to the upper reaches of the Fox where, for a precious moment, the clouds parted to reveal a cobalt blue sky and serrated snowcaps of 3000 meter high mountains. Then we seemed to free fall alongside the steep upper descent of the glacier called Victoria Falls before hovering in a spin over a little anvil of ice in the middle of Fox Glacier. Below us, visible only as black specks among the wrinkles and crevasses, were people. A few hundred yards above them, it was hard to imagine how they got here.

          Now we descended with skilled purpose, spinning, spinning, looking for threats to our safe touch down—wind shear, probably. Touch down?! We barely placed both runners on the anvil, which could not be much larger than a billiard table. The rotor stayed hot, and the pilot opened his door. But he stayed in his seat. We were met by our glacier guide, who helped us with our belts and our packs and our footing as we made the long step from chopper to pack ice. I suddenly knew why some agility is required for this trip.
          The chopper pilot was in a hurry. He had more people to ferry—including five more for our trip—and he was impatient to end his balancing act on this altar of ice. No sooner did our fifth passenger scramble down into the arms of our

No sooner did our fifth passenger scramble
down into the arms of our glacier guide
than the helicopter leapt about ten feet
into the air, then rolled right, plunging
steeply down ice for the two-minute
straight run to the pick-up point.

Our glacier guide, Pierre, cut
quite a figure—handsome,
athletic, even cheery—as he
wended his pick-axe in one
hand deftly carving out stair
steps without breaking
stride or a sweat.

          Our glacier guide assembled his charges by the cordwood. "I’m Pierre," he said in an Aussie-French accent. Pierre is not his real name. I’ve forgotten his real name. But I will not forget his accent. Not a keeper.
          Pierre handed out the contents of the wooden box: steel-toothed frames for our hobnail boots—elementary instep crampons. Then he passed out the logs, which turned out to be wooden poles tipped with galvanized steel points—alpenstocks! Next came a five-minute lesson on how to walk in our slippery environs. Then, like a mother duck, Pierre led his fifteen goslings up out of the depression and into terra incognita.
          For the next two and a half hours Pierre—easily the youngest of us, certainly the fittest of us, and, oddly, not the only one of us in short pants—led us on a glacial scavenger hunt. We collected as many glacier-walking experiences as he could assemble for us. We nervously climbed ridges, squeezed sideways between ice walls, stepped gingerly over crevasses, slip-slided through ice grottoes, ascended crowns, stared down mesmerized into chasms, all with Pierre’s running commentary of light patter

          Most of us were fit—savvy—young—daring enough to take on every challenge Pierre threw at us. Even the loud reports from the glacier cracking in the late summer warmth didn’t put us off. Pierre kept spirits buoyant, even when we would venture into an area without an outlet and had to retrace our steps. One of us, however, was not right for the trip.
          Like most of us, she was a flatlander and a first-timer on a glacier. But she was clearly eldest (except for her like-old husband) at about 60 years old. She was an Aussie on her first trip to New Zealand. I don’t think she had ever seen snow before, let alone a sloping, moving river of ice. She had the most difficulty with getting in

We climbed ridges, squeezed sideways between
ice walls, stepped gingerly over crevasses,
slid through ice grottoes, ascended crowns,
and stared down mesmerized into chasms.
Photo credit - Legend Photography - NZ Tourism.

and out of the chopper, learning to walk with the ice aids, and overcoming her fear of slipping and falling. Pierre paid great attention to her, making sure that her experience was as positive as possible, seeing to it that she did not become too worried that she was spoiling things for the others, helping her stay at ease even when her tendency was to panic. Thanks to Pierre, the woman was a danger neither to herself nor to the others. But she should not have been there.
          A simple test will tell you if you should be there: are you afraid of falling in a slippery environment? If "Yes" is your answer, pick another adventure. Fox Glacier Guiding has something suitable for you.

          By 2:30 PM we were feeling accustomed to

Just when the braver, bolder, more foolish
of us began to drift away from the group,
our guide Pierre declared it was time to
descend to the chopper pick-up point.

our ice legs. Just when the braver, bolder, more foolish of us began to drift away from the group to see if we could get a better photo angle of some imposing ice structure or other, Pierre declared it time to descend to the chopper pick-up point. Amidst all the hills and rills, and the endless gray-white with ice-blue and chocolate-chip-brown accents, somehow Pierre pick-axed a path right to the drop zone. After 2.5 hours on the Fox, the only quasi-flat spot we had seen was the anvil the chopper landed on. And it would no longer be there tomorrow.
          No sooner had we shed our crampons and pointy sticks than we heard the approach of the chopper. Scrambling into the helicopter proved no easier the second time. The pilot showed us some last remarkable scenery during the descent. Our arrival at the blockhouse reminded me of the end of an aerial tramway ride in the Alps. Except without cables. Changing back to civilian shoes felt a lot like taking off ice skates: for the first few minutes conventional walking was something of a new and amusing experience.

          I don’t remember the bus ride back to the headquarters. But I do remember I was the only one of our group of fifteen who did not end up buying a souvenir. I was tempted. It would have been a gratuity purchase, however. That is to say, it would be a way of saying "Thanks for this experience. It was worth the NZ$395 and more." Instead, I made up my mind to tell you about the trip. Next time you’re with Home At First in Westland, be sure to look up Fox Glacier Guiding. Ask for Pierre.