Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Fox Glacier (5th March)




A guided day hike on the Fox Glacier is today's plan and it's blue sky and sunshine to herald the day, my favourite! We walk up the steep valley side and drop down onto the glacier after fastening crampons over boots and taking a ski pole to help us- or, as our guide said, to poke things with.

It's a bit grubby, there's been no rainfall for a while, rock falls continually from the valley face but there's nothing to wash it off with at present. In fact, despite the fact that the area receives about 10m rainfall a year they're actually in drought.

We walk up the glacier as far as it's possible to go- an area of deep crevases. In fact the company are trying to fill in these to make a walking route up to where the helicopters land but as the crevasses can be 100m long by 2m wide and 10+m deep and it's done by people with ice axes it understandably takes a long while. Meanwhile the glacier is shifting and changing.

It's a fun but exhausting day. We see evidence of ice moles but no penguins.



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