Fox Glacier 24-28 August

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

We stopped at Punakaiki on the way down

The first load heading up the Chancellor hut

The glacier is truly stunning

Chancellor sits on the left hand lower terrace just above the snowline

Chancellor hut

It was built between 1929 and 1931 - a beautiful hut

Looking back on the glacier

Passang took us for a walk in the snow - it was hard work

Everyone had a turn breaking trail

The view back to where we'd come from

Happy trampers

Queen Elisabeth

DW and Passang

We had amazing views of Mounts Cook (R) and Tasman (M)

Pano showing some of the neve (25km wide) that feeds the glacier

Glen

We had fun sliding and practicing our self arrests on the way back to the hut

Walking over a recent avalanche shute

Ray deep in snow

Almost back at the hut

...just enough time for another slide

We saw plenty of avalanches

The morning dawned bright

Final hut photos

A great day to walk back down

Looking back at the hut

There were a few drop offs, but nothing too scary

Had to pay attention though...not easy for some of us

A particularly steep section

We climbed down towards the upper glacier

Passang checking out the condition of the glacier

Luckily this track has been cut over summer

Passang put up a line and we explored the upper glacier before we headed back into the bush and down to the middle glacier

Looking for a suitable spot

From whence we'd come

Lucky to see some Kea

Nev climbing onto the middle glacier

We explored some ice caves and Glen tried out his rocket pack

Crossing to the middle of the glacier

Made it!!

The middle glacier is a lot smoother than the upper glacier

Glen practicing his abseiling skills

Hey Passang

That night we went to Passang's son Migma's 2nd birthday

The last day arrived and we borrowed Passang's car to go exploring

and ended up at Gillespies Beach

It had great views back to the mountains

There was heaps of old gold mining stuff

and a tunnel - everybody loves a good tunnel

We walked to Galway Bay and ate leftover tramping food - tight bastards!!

Heading back to Gillespies Beach

We had fun, but got wet and muddy feet

cheking around the local cemetry

We stopped at the beautiful Lake Matheson, but didn't get the magic reflection photo