Heli-Hiking on the Tasman Glacier

Glacial Lakes from the sky

The sound of the helicopter pilot’s voice talks to us through our headsets telling us about different features of the glacial valley, particularly Tasman Lake. It’s brilliant turquoise colour dotted with ice bergs have been left behind during the Tasman Glacier’s retreat. The only way we can comprehend its size is by the pilot pointing out the little yellow boats of people whizzing around the lake.

Landing on the glacier

Then, we see it, the huge Tasman Glacier spanning as far as the eye can see. A lot flatter than we imagined, the Tasman Glacier goes from wavey ice formations to smoothed out ice to ice carpeted in snow. That’s when we realise that this glacier experience is going to be a lot different than any other we have landed on before.

It’s only us out here on the glacier. The pilot has to scout an ideal spot to land. Second time’s a charm! Tex helps us out of the helicopter one-by-one. We feel so badass ducking and kneeling on the ground away from the chopper. (Although the “ducking” part is totally unnecessary).

Isolated on the Tasman Glacier

The helicopter flies away, taking its intense chopping noise along with it. Now it’s just the five of us alone on New Zealand’s longest glacier…

Tex shows us how to put our crampons on. It’s the finishing touch to looking like hardcore alpine explorers. We are ready to hike!

Hiking on an icy giant

Fresh snow backpacker traps

Because there has been fresh snow on the glacier over the last four days, there are patches of fresh snow with the unknown trapped underneath them – crevasses, yetis, the last tour group? The rule of thumb is to walk over them. Tex checks out the larger snow patches, giving them a prod with his pickaxe to check for air holes. Then, he stamps his foot in the snow to tell us following hikers that it’s safe to cross. Nevertheless, we do have a couple of hilarious stumbles in the (thankfully!!) shallow soft snow: once with Robin trying to multi-task with cameras, and once with Laura somehow getting each foot stuck in two separate snow patches and ends up saddled on an ice ridge. Yee-haw, ice pony!

Glacier pools and avalanches

Other than small crevasses, there are many ever-changing features out here on the Tasman Glacier, such as small pools of glacier-fresh water for a quick drink.

“Usually by this time of the day, we’ll be hearing avalanches…” Tex says right on cue for a rumble that echoes through the valley. We spot the avalanche across the valley, however the sound of the ruckus doesn’t reach us at the same time as we spot giant pieces of ice fall down the mountainside.

Echoes through the valley continue drawing our attention for the rest of the trip, all of us so desperate to see an avalanche bigger than the last. However, Tex is racking his brains to find a feature that he is desperate to show us… he just can’t find it.