accessible glaciers on the west coast of New Zealand

New Zealand’s West Coast boasts two of the world’s most accessible glaciers. The mild climate and good accessibility make Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier popular tourist attractions. Franz Josef Glacier is the more busy of these two glaciers, so I decided to visit Fox Glacier. The latter is a 13 km long glacier that descends 2,600 metres on its way from the Southern Alps and finishes near rainforest on 300 metres above sea level. Its length decreased steadily over the last years.

Beautiful Lake Wanaka

From Queenstown it was a 6 hour drive to the Fox Glacier. We made a short stop at Lake Wanaka, a beautiful mountain lake. I would have loved to spend a little more time there. But my schedule was too tight and the accommodations there were all booked up anyway.  Famous there is a small tree that grows in the water. Many people gather there to take an Instagram photo.

"Celebrating" my birthday with canned beans and cheap chocolate bars

I was sharing a ride with the 2 US americans Brittany and Luke. These two were also the only people who could congratulate me personally on my birthday which was on that day! And how did we "celebrate"? We toasted with TimTams, Australian chocolate bars as I couldn't drink alcohol because of the antibiotics I still had to take!

It was already dark when we arrived in the tiny Fox Glacier village. Desperately we were still looking for a restaurant to eat, but the mini village featured only 2 restaurants, which were about to close and were also extremely overpriced. So for my exquisite birthday dinner I made canned beans.

Expensive tours

In my hostel I met a nice Saxon. We both found the tour to enter the Fox Glacier too expensive. The pleasure costs almost 500 NZ$ including helicopter flight and guide. There is no other possibility. And sometimes the heli rides have to be canceled due to the bad weather which is common on the west coast of New Zealand's south island.

Instead we climbed Mount Fox, a small mountain from where you have a view of the Fox Glacier formation. The elder landlord of our hostel stated that we would need about 8 hours. Well, if he says so, we certainly only need 6 hours. What a delusion! It indeed took 8 hours and was perhaps the second most difficult hike I have done in my life.

Tropical weather & extremly steep

It started with us being dressed all wrong. The term glacier is associated with cold so I packed myself with the warmest clothes I had. However, most of the hike went through rainforest with tropical temperatures and at the summit the sun came down on us. Sweat was pouring down our overheated bodies one after the other. We climbed quite a bit of altitude and often had to pull up stones or roots because the path was extremely steep. Often we also had to wade through muddy passages.

Animals and other hikers we hardly saw. Apparently they knew better than us what an ordeal this hiking trail is. But it was worth it. From above you can see the contrast between the icy glaciers in white on one side and the lush river delta in green on the other side.

Exhausting going down

We rested for a short time on the top and got ready for the descent, which was torturously long. The one and a half litre bottle of water that each of us carried was not sufficient for our hike so that we finally made it down with a bad headache.  We longed for a bed where we could stretch our legs.

When we finally arrived, we bought the most affordable food in the tiny and expensive supermarket. Anyway the cheap dinner we had prepared for ourselves tasted much better after such an exhausting day. It was a pity that the whirlpool of the hostel was out of order because of a lightning strike. Since I had already done a 6 hour hike the day before, I felt my knee weeks after this hike.

Already the next morning I left the small village and went further north.