The sounds of Kea and bitty little Tomtits filled the air as my group--a mix of four other co-travelers and myriad Europeans--climbed through the rainforest. When I say climbed, I mean climbed. We forded glacial fed rivers, we climbed up water falls, and we scuttled as quick as we could through rock slide areas where we were most strongly advised to grab the chain "railing" with both hands. At long last, we reached a bed of schist. We were handed Alpine stocks and told to get our crampons on. After a quick briefing, up the ice stairs we went and there we were; on the Fox Glacier.
Our guide (an Australian of course--because there aren't any actual Native New Zealanders in this country), was an old hand and happy to show us all sorts of wonders--moulins crevasses, tunnels, ice caves--you name it, we saw it. We also had the privilage of hiking through an older crevasse and the option to throw rocks into cracks to see how long it took to hear them hit something. I was struck by the most brilliant, fantastic blues that I have ever seen and was only sure that death was immenent once--we had less than a foot wide of a trail to walk on and if we fell or slipped, down into a crevasse we would have gone. It turns out that dying on a glacier is not in my top ways to go list--at least with bungee jumping or skydiving, it's one hit and lights out. On a glacier, you slip, are likely paralyzed somehow, and stuck in the dark and cold for a couple of days until you finally wink out--I'd rather be attacked by a shark.
It got a little cold and uncomfortable when it poured buckets for half an hour--fortunately the guide company provided rain gear and I remained reasonably dry but for my feet.
It was fantastically bizzare to see the rainforest through glacial crests, but awesomely beautiful at the same time. The hike back was a little rough as by that time my muscles were putting up quite a fuss for all of the rigamorole that I put them through, but we managed and lived to see another day.
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