Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve never done any snow sports like skiing or snowboarding. It’s like telling people I’ve never seen Star Wars or been to New York City. *For shame!*
Now that I’m home for the holidays and absolutely freezing my ass off (seriously, I’m in layers and scarves inside the house), I realize even more that I’m simply not meant to live in cold climates. I generally pride myself on being a highly adaptable person, but I’ve yet to adapt to being cold. Perhaps i’m allergic.
In my travels, I can point to just one instance – in two years and 25 countries – where being cold was tolerable, and in fact, a lot of fun!
It was on the south island of New Zealand, home to one of only two regions in the world where a glacier meets a temperate rainforest (the other region being Patagonia).
I rented some gear and did a little half-day hiking tour through the rainforest and up Fox Glacier…
…to this mountain of ice!
The first part of the hike took us uphill through the rainforest, where it was muddy and…wait for it…rainy. I know, weird, right?
With the rainfall came rapid riverstreams in our path. Thaaat was fun. Splashing up to my shins through the rivers, the insides of my boots became little pools of ice cold water, and remained so for the rest of the hike. *Brrrr* My red wool socks squish-squished with every step for the next couple of hours.
As my group approached the glacier, we were instructed to attach crampons to our boots – crampons being those sharp metal claw thingies that create traction as you walk on the ice (pictured below at the end of the green straps).
Crampons securely fastened and with walking sticks and ice picks in tow, up onto the glacier we went. Oddly enough, my first reaction upon seeing the mountain of ice was, it’s dirty. It was my first time getting up close and personal with a glacier, and I guess I expected it to be glisteningly white and shiny. Silly me! But it was still quite pretty, as white sparkles and blue tints occasionally shined through.
– If I were to do it again and didn’t have such an aversion to being cold, I would’ve done a FULL-day hike. The half-day hike doesn’t get you very far up the glacier.
– If I were to do it again and had more MONEY, I would’ve done the heli-hike. It’s a helicopter/hiking adventure to areas of the glacier where the ice is in constant motion, and you get to hike where there are ice caves and ice arches.
– If I were to do it again and speak like the LOCALS, I would NOT have been calling it a “glacier hike” at all, and instead a “glacier TRAMP.”
Yes. In New Zealand, hiking is called “tramping.” [Insert Beavis and Butthead chuckle]
Anyway, my roadtrip buddies and I would later do some smaller tramps around Fox Glacier, and explore the base of nearby Franz Josef glacier as well.
Call me a little tramp, but I found tramping around the glaciers to be a lot of fun!