Places



Glacier Heli Hike


This post was published on Tuesday 15 January 2019.

Hiding from the sandflies...

Our day began early – as we opened the van it was filled with sandflies. They are a serious nuisance here on the West Coast. Here’s Jess dressed up so avoid them..!

We arrived at the heli-hike drop off at 8am.  It took a while to check in because Jess (under orders from me) ‘fessed up about her sprained ankle.  They asked loads of questions and then made her walk and jump over a mini stairs thing at the side of the foyer. Several times.  They passed her!

We were all given woollen socks, boots, over trousers, waterproof jacket, a beanie (which we were allowed to keep), crampons and a bag – no other bags allowed.  They also had super SPF 50 sun cream which we slathered everywhere... Jess was a huge fan, apparently it made her skin feel really nice!

https://youtu.be/qrXodRXySWk

The helicopter ride was about five minutes – and it was Jess’s first!  It was very smooth – the landing pad was a square patch of ice that the guides had literally hewn out of the glacier!

Off we went – and it was pretty amazing.  The ice is so blue – apparently that’s because glacier ice is really dense (a cubic metre of ice weighs a metric ton!), and reflects the blue wavelength. Our guide was called Liam, and as we were one of the first groups of the day he was having to make prodigious use of his ice pick to actually create the path / steps for us to walk on.  The glacier moves and shifts daily, and rain completely washes away their paths, so the guides have to continually hew out the path.

Walking with crampons and a stick was surprisingly easy – in one or two places the ice was very slushy and too slippy even for the crampons – but the most surprising part was when the hard ice disappeared under Ben’s foot, and almost his entire left leg disappeared into a hole of freezing glacier water!

Thankfully he wasn’t injured, and managed to extricate himself – but the guide (Liam) came back, apologised for not noticing the hole (it wasn’t his fault at all – it looked exactly like the rest of the ice until Ben’s leg went gone through it) and proceeded to use his ice-pick to hack off loads of ice, and shove in the hole so no-one from the following groups fell in!

Some of the crevasses were so narrow we had to do a ‘pin-step’ walk, which is one foot in front of the other, shuffling forward.  It was quite a stunning walk, and the most beautiful weather for doing it.  Liam was a great guide, despite being an Aussie (!), and had quite the workout hewing away at the ice for us to walk on.

All in all, the hike was about three hours on the ice. Right at the end was a tiny hole that was a new addition to the hike (four days ago) – which changes weekly based on the changing weather and ice conditions – a little too small for lumbering oafs like Ben to get through, but Jess managed it...

https://youtu.be/61xRZVi2Tq8

The walk included free access to the Glacier Hot Pools – three different pools at 36/38/40 degrees. We had a private pool area though, with our own shower, which was very welcome after the long hot hike.

And, mercifully, despite being surrounded by rainforest, the pools were pretty much free of sandflies. It was a lovely relaxing way to end the hike – followed by some cold beer and dinner round the corner, before walking back to the campervan to do a huge load of laundry that’s been piling up!