Ice, Ice Baby

After landing at the small strip that is Fox Airport (I think only the air strips we landed at in Costa Rica were smaller and more remote), Robert marched us posthaste into the nearby town of Fox (easy to remember, given that it’s the name of the Glacier too) to the Fox Helihike building.  I had expected a shuttle van to pick us up – but it wasn’t needed, as we marched past the sheep and into town.

We got there just in time to check-in, get a lunch that we never really ate, get the briefing, and take the shuttle bus (I knew there HAD to be one involved!) to the helicopter pad.  There, we changed into special boots and thick socks, loaded up, and headed up.

It was three Bolgers and 21 Asians (mostly from China).  We split into four groups, and two copters shuttled us up the mountain to their landing pad on the glacier.  Everytime the choppers would land or leave, I felt like I was living the opening scene from M*A*S*H* (only the greatest show in TV history) as we had to duck and cover our eyes.

Once all four groups of six were up, we put on crampons and grabbed a single skipole-like pole.  Maddy and I had both done a glacier hike in Alaska, but it was Carol’s first time.  None of us had any problems with the crampons, or going up and down the ice steps/path that the Fox Helihike people used.  We had about 2.5 hours on the hike.  We split in two groups of twelve each.

Our guide was named Jules – a young woman from a small village outside of London.  When she predicted I had never heard of it, she was right.  Apparently it’s claim to fame was being next to another village that was used as the setting in a movie I’d never heard of, so I think the claim to fame is rather tenuous at best!

Jules was great, but she was as exasperated as Carol and I were by the antics of the Asians (nine of them in our group, in case you aren’t good at math).  Several refused to stay on the path or follow directions (and, yes, they all spoke very good to passable English), and they all had to pose for as many pictures as possible, slowing the walk down.

They really got out of control with their picture taking, as it felt like we were crawling along.  Some of the pictures made no sense at all.  The other is that they would push pass you to make sure they got their pictures right away.  I would be shocked if they have any photos just of the scenery – every photo had to be posed.

I know what you are thinking – Glen, you took a lot of pictures, stop being judgmental and borderline anti-Asian.  Well, yes, I did take pictures, but it was a stop everything Hollywood production each time!  And, they were quite pleasant people to talk with, but they also got carried away with their cameras.  Jules became more and more exasperated.

Finally Jules told them no more picture taking until she would allow it.  That made the endgame of the hike MUCH more pleasant because we were actually, you know, hiking!

While Maddy and I agreed that the Alaska glacier was more impressive than this one, Fox Glacier is still very beautiful.  The blue ice is my favorite, and there was a waterfall off the side of the mountain that was quite pretty.

There was a lot of rocks scraped up by the glacier mixed in with the ice, and there were tunnels and holes and (of course) many crevasses.  We crawled through some holes, went down a crevasse, and posed for some pictures here and there.  We went down part of the glacier, then up, and also drank water from a couple of glacial streams running through the ice.

Unlike our Alaska glacial hike, there was no ice wall climbing here – they offer that, neither Carol nor I would want to do it.  Simply hiking about was more than good enough for us.

If you have never done a glacial hike, be sure to if you get the chance.  It’s not just a walk in the snow.