Our Fox Glacier walk

We are going to be walking on the Fox glacier today and we awake to drizzle and the weather is due to rain all day! We head up to Fox and get checked in and kitted out in water proof trousers, boots, crampons, mittens and hats and off we go up to the start of the walk. The first part is walking across to the side of the valley, crossing small rivers with large stepping stones. We then start to climb about 800 steps up the side of the mountain. This is hard going but we are a bit sheltered from the rain as we are amongst the trees. I am getting wet through by this stage! We then come out across the stones that connect us to the glacier. We put on our crampons and get a alpinestick and start our walk up onto the glacier on steps that have been cut into the glacier. By this time it is torrential rain but it doesn’t diminish the fact that it is an amazing sight and huge. After are walk around on the glacier for a while it is decided that we should head back and our walk is cut short. They are concerned about the weather closing in and also some landslides along our walking route back so we make our way down. By the time we get back to the stepping stones they are submerged under the water so our already wet feet get a proper soaking!!!

We finally get back to the base and get some dry clothes on and have a hot drink, what a shame the rain came!! It rained all day and all night - thought we got a lot of rain, here they can get 4m per year in rainfall!!