Glacier Heli-Hike

We were very excited about our heli-hike as we tried to do one last year, but it was cancelled because of thick fog. With clear skies and not a cloud in sight, we were pretty sure we were going to fly today.

Our group of 11 outfitted in jackets and warm gear before splitting up for the helicopter ride. Jeremy and I were picked to ride up first with a family of 3. We eagerly jumped into the helicopter with our guide, Julia, popped on our headsets and held on tight. The flight was about 10 minutes long and our pilot gave us some good views of the glacier before popping us down to the ice.

Once we landed, we were given axes and crampons for our boots, which made it much easier to walk around. Once the second group arrived, we set off on our two hour hike. Julia worked with a bigger axe to chop away a clear path in the ice (we were the first trip of the day). She tested spots to make sure we were safe and cut away steps when we had to climb up and over larger pieces of ice. We ventured through ice tunnels, into caves and even had to slide through tiny holes to make it back to the helipad for our pickup.

To give you an idea of the size of the glacier, the ice above the black spot behind us is more than 50 meters thick. We were like tiny little ants out there:

The glacier is constantly moving and while we were there we heard a very loud ice slip. Huge chunks of ice (bigger than cars) just fell straight down. It's very dangerous there. The day after we left, two guys were crushed to death by falling ice. Our flight back was just as amazing as the trip there. As we said goodbye to the glacier, we thought about how lucky we were to have experienced something so awesome.

We relaxed over lunch and browsed some shops before meeting up with Tim and Jackie. They did a full day hike and were finished in the late afternoon. Our next stop, Queenstown was about a 5 hour drive from there, so we wanted to get on the road as fast as possible. We certainly were keeping to our schedule until this farmer and his sheep got in our way. It didn't take them long to get out of the way, but we've never seen a sight like this - even in NZ!