It was really tricky to figure out clothing for the day, since it was warm in the valley, and it was hard to tell what it would be like on the glacier. The guys at the guide shop were dressed in short sleeve shirts and shorts, so I figured I'd go with that, and bring along a fleece vest and a hat just in case it got really chilly. It was forecast to start raining later in the afternoon too, so that made things tough.
They provided a gore-tex jacket as a rain jacket, which I decided to use, to save my ran shell from any wear from rubbing against the ice. They also provided Grivel crampons that strapped onto my boots. I decided to use my boots instead of the ones they offered. Katie was going to use her boots too, but they said her boots didn't go high enough on her ankle for support, so she had to use their boots. The problem with that is that Katie's feet are really narrow, and the chances of her finding a boot that fit her were slim to none. She tried on several pairs, and worked her way down to the smallest size they offered, and they were still too big. Even with two pairs of thick socks on, she could still slide the laced and tied boot off of her foot without untieing the laces. She went with 3 pairs of socks, and it was still too big. The main concern was that she would mess up her feet, and be in poor shape for our 3 day hike of the Routeburn Track coming up in 2 days.
Sorting out camera gear was another fun one. The tripod came along for the entire hike, and my typical mode of hiking with it is to leave the camera attached to the tripod, and have it balanced on my shoulder. This meant I would have one free hand. I asked some of the guides if it was ever technical, and they said it wasn't very technical, so I felt OK.
We piled into the big red bus at 10pm that took a big group up to the parking lot near the foot of the glacier. There were 55 people on the trip today. We went through the rainforest, up and down a couple of ladders, and down to the terminal face of the glacier. The group then split into 5 smaller groups. The guides lead the group through the glacier, carrying a huge old fashioned ice pick and cutting steps in the ice where they need to.
They also clean up anything that may cause a hazard for the group behind. They also set ice screws as anchors with a piece of 8mm cord to use as helpers for some of the really steep steps, or if there is a crevasse close to the bottom of the descents. They really make it easy to get around on the glacier.
After we stopped for lunch, we found a couple tight tunnels in the ice, which were extremely blue and clean ice, everybody in the group shimmied through the tunnel.
A little while later, it started to drizzle, and then to rain pretty hard. We were at our highest point on the glacier when it really started coming down. A Helicopter flew in to rescue somebody from another group, and take them down to the valley. I found out later that it was someone who was having an asthma attack, and just couldn't get it under control. There are helicopters flying around the glacier during the day, and the heli-hike was one of the options, but we both decided to stick with the full day trip. Our guide, Johnathon, said we made a good choice, since the heli hikes don't really get to see that much more ice, and it's over $100 more per person.
I got to try the little raincoat I got for my camera, which seemed to work pretty well. after a while, visibility was so poor, and it was raining so hard, I just decided to put everything in the drybag, and call it a day for photos...
It was an excellent day, I was a little worried about Katie's feet getting messed up the whole time, but near the end, when I asked her how she was doing, she was just grinning from ear to ear. Everything worked out just fine.
We went back down the glacier, got off the ice at around 4:30pm and back through the rain forest to the bus, where all 55 folks piled in like drowned rats. I was very glad it was only a 10 min. ride back to the village, it was pretty steamy and stinky on that bus.
We returned all of the gear to the guide shop, changed into some dry clothes, and ate next door at the cafe. I called ahead to our next night's stay at Haast, to let them know we'd be there around 8:30pm, since almost every little hotel and hostel closes the front desk at 8pm. This can be a big pain for trying to cover a lot of ground, because if you don't get to your room in time, or make other arrangements, you are out of luck. Well, the place I called didn't have any record of our reservation. In a little panic, I went through the old emails from places, and finally discovered the correct place. They said we would be in room 1 and they would leave the door unlocked and the key on the bed. After a 2 hour uneventful drive, we made it to Heritage Park Lodge in Haast, and found the room just as described.
1 comment:
May I know which guided hike company you went with? Thanks
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