Wednesday, March 9, 2016

An Amazing Day Hiking on the Glacier

We went on a "Heli-Hike" today!  

One of the many wonderful attractions here in Fox Glacier is to take a helicopter flight up and land on the glacier and walk with a guide for 2-3 hours on the ice.  The glacier is always changing; moving up to one meter everyday; it was an incredible experience!  We took over 160 pictures, but narrowed this blog post down to 50.

On the bus for our 4 minute ride to the helicopter pad
 At the helicopter pad waiting for our safety briefing.  We just so happened to get this picture of David with the fuel trailer - it wasn't planned!

 Buckled in and ready for take-off


 Once we landed on the ice we were issued crampons to strap on our boots for ice-walking
 This is actually 2 groups.  There were 10 people in our group following our guide, Mike.
 Exploring our first ice cave


 Our guide explained that the glacier water is the best and purest water you can drink, but since we didn't have a cup, and to save our hands from freezing, the best way to drink it was to use his axe and get a drink while doing a push-up.
 Clouds coming in


This was our guide originally from Seattle, Washington



 You can see the other group in the upper left corner
 Entering another cave/tunnel





 Our guide used the pick to make sure we didn't fall through crevasses.  
We just played around with it!



A short video of our guide explaining part of the glacier








 Time to head back


 Fox River from the glacier

 Flying into the sunset


Perfect end to a wonderful day!

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