Heli-Hiking on Franz Josef Glacier – A Kiwi Adventure

It’s an awe-inspiring moment when we land on a sea of blue-white ice, on a patch no larger than a biggish carpet.

I’m in New Zealand’s South Island and it’s my first time in a helicopter. It will land on Franz Josef glacier – called Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere in Māori which means the ‘tears of Hine Hukatere’. Māori legend speaks of princess Hine Hukatere, who lost her lover in an avalanche on the mountain. The Sky Father Rangi, pitying the grief-stricken princess, turned her tears into the glacier. 

I’m here because I have parted with a fairly large sum of money to try heli-hiking. I hadn’t heard of it before I planned to visit New Zealand. It’s an adventure activity combining a breathtaking scenic flight over distant ice fields, with a hike on the glacier. Flying avoids the glacier’s unstable terminal face, to reach remote and inaccessible areas. 

Icescapes. Photo: Matthew Angus

I go to the office of our glacier guides a couple of hours ahead. The unpredictable, hazardous conditions mean there is usually a 50% chance the flight will be cancelled. I hang around, waiting anxiously for news, then hear that the pilot has radioed-in the go-ahead. 

It is strictly forbidden to walk on the glacier without an experienced guide. Given the risks, it is incomprehensible why anyone should want to. I fill out a health questionnaire. There’s an embarrassing moment when I am weighed for the helicopter ride. I avoid looking at the scales, hoping the optimistic estimate I provided earlier wasn’t totally laughable. The guide tactfully says nothing, and I don’t ask.

Then the cheery guide kits me out with somewhat smelly waterproof trousers, a jacket, hiking pole, and crampons, after a safety briefing. 

The glacier drops steeply from the Southern Alps into a rainforest, so I walk through lush green vegetation to the airfield. My friend’s gloomy talk about the dangers of helicopters is at the back of my mind. So, I’m nervous but excited as the charismatic pilot takes off.

Dwarfed by giant blue ridges. Photo: Matthew Angus

It’s an awe inspiring moment when we land on a sea of blue-white ice, on a patch no larger than a biggish carpet. I panic briefly when the helicopter takes off again, and I realise our small group is alone with no way down until the helicopter comes back.

The glacier guides have carved out a hiking route, with huge, uneven ice steps, sometimes requiring a rope to climb. It’s very, very slippery – like walking on a giant ice cube. I find it hard to relax or trust the crampons and am impressed by the speed at which the guide climbs. 

I soon regret the layers of clothes we were instructed to wear and become hot and sweaty within five minutes of walking. I find the climb reasonably strenuous and tricky, not being used to walking on ice. It takes about 30 minutes to develop a technique that works for me – kick forward with the spike, then push down. 

The reward is dramatic views – gigantic icy pillars, deep blue ridges, and colossal ice caves. There’s unstable ice and deep, narrow crevasses that I quickly step over without looking down, fearing a vertigo attack. 

We walk for two hours on the winding path, sometimes shuffling like caterpillars, or squeezing through tight tunnels. The highpoint is a pair of massive blue ridges, dwarfing me as I look up, moved to reverent silence by the majesty of the natural world. 

It’s the climax of my year off, and I drink a lot of wine that night to mark one of life’s special days.

Divya Maitreyi Chari is a neuroscientist and Professor of Neural Tissue Engineering at the Keele School of Medicine in the UK. She has previously published articles on a jungle survival course in British Guyana, travels in Patagonia, Norway, the Galapagos islands, Southern Africa and along the Bhutan-Tibet border.