Fox Glacier Hike
Posted: February 27th, 2011 by Courtney
One of the things I really wanted to do in New Zealand was a glacier walk. So after a mellow night in Wanaka, we drove over the Haast Pass to the West Coast. The Westland National Park is home to two glaciers that you can hike with guides, Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier. We decided to stay in Fox Glacier Town and do the glacier hike the following morning.
The hike started with a 40-minute walk through the forest before strapping our crampons on and climbing onto the side of the glacier on ice steeps carved by previous guides. After we reach a level area and learned how to walk in our crampons, we followed our guide to explore the ice environment. As the glacier is ever changing, our guide carved our way through the ice as we went along. We walked higher onto the glacier and got a chance to crawl through an ice tunnel and a cravat. Overall, it was a great experience and after hiking for about six hours we were both exhausted.
Fox Glacier
Hiking onto the glacier
Checking out a cave
Crawling into an ice tunnel
Enjoying the view