Fox Glacier

The Kiwis are in no way pretentious, but I roll my eyes everytime I heard them pronounce "glass-EE-er" instead of "glay-sure." My hike on Fox Glacier was not as scary as bungy jumping, but I am certain that it was much more dangerous. These are just a few of the reasons why:

• Death - Two Australians were killed by falling debris in January. In the glacier's defense, these people had climbed over the marked barriers.


• Fatigue - In order to reach the ice, you must climb up a mountain. There are a series of steps built into the mountain. You might ask, "How many steps, Maureen?" Seven hundred. Seven hundred! These are steep two-at-a-time steps and you are carrying about 5 extra pounds of heavy hiking boot (not built for comfort) on each leg. This does not include the 3 meter ladder bolted into the mountain. The track was increased from 500 to 700 steps within the last few weeks due to a series of landslides. Are there handrails anywhere along the mountain? Don't be silly.
  
• Mental anguish regarding hydration - Plan A was to drink as little water as possible all day because I didn't want Mother Nature to call while I was on the glacier. I envisioned myself getting stuck to the ice (a la A Christmas Story) in a compromising position. I had to resort to Plan B when I was faced with seven hundred steps.
  
• Strap on your crampon! - You have to adjust all your footsteps so that the middle of the your foot hits the ground first. This allows the crampon spikes to dig into the ice. Not difficult by any means, but you find yourself concentrating on every step. You have to carefully consider foot placement and ice topography. Our guide used his axe to cut "steps" in the particularly steep areas. The "steps" were like little footholes that only fit the toe cage, so it's difficult to get a grip.


• Sunshine - We had a relatively warm and sunny day, which was good news and bad news. It meant that many of the tracks melted away so our guide had to start from scratch in some sections. This really slowed us down, and I'm pretty sure we took the "long way." At one point, we saw him run up to another guide and say, "I haven't been up here in ages." Excuse me?!


• Crevaces - Some of these cracks in the ice are paper thin and others are wide and deep enough to allow you to plunge to an icy death. Our guide was leading us to one such crevace when he abruptly turned around and said, "Go the other way. Don't even get close enough to look."
  
• Cuts like a knife - The ice surface is not nearly as smooth as it appears. We had to move through one particularly steep and narrow section one-by-one. The fist girl tripped. Then the next guy got a bloody knee. Then Dawn got a bloody hand. Then I got a bloody hand. I thought we'd have to be helicoptered out of there.

It was dangerous and fun and a looong day. I felt like I channeld the spirit of Kiwi hero Sir Ed... except he climbed Mt. Everest and I almost collapsed after climbing seven hundred stairs.