Day Nine - Chasing the Glaciers

Rosemary and Tim delay our leave-taking with a few more local knowledge tips but we escape and begin our first glacier adventure of the trip. We opt out on the 90 minute tramp to the face of the glacier instead choosing the short 20 minute tramp up (steeply up I would like to add) Sentinel Rock to an overview of the glacier from about a thousand yards. A clear morning sun is illuminating the snow covered tops of the range but as we head out on the path, the sun is obliterated and we are engulfed by ferns, flax and moss covered trees. Also the trail is up hill. Heavy on the UP part. Did I mention it was UPhill? Kris makes note of the fact it is the first time she can remember having ass cramps before breakfast. I just smile not wanting to give away my distress at tramping up one more damn hill. Apparently there are no flat, level ground tramps in this country. What really pisses me off is that the view when we reach the top is once again worth the heavy breathing and heart palpitations. Upon our return to the carpark, an entire busload of young men is preparing to take some gullible suckers on a guided personal tramp ON the actual glacier. The young men are all dressed in quite tight shorts, thin sweatshirts and cramp-ons for their boots so they can walk on the ice. I am personally disgusted by this show of false bravado and walk to our car. Kris apparently is intrigued by their equipment and attempts to engage more than one of the young men in a dissertation about their special equipment. I say if you’ve seen one ice pick, you’ve seen them all. By the time she gets back to our car the heater has warmed it to equatorial temperatures.

The Lake Matheson tramp is next for us and weather Karma is once again playing out in our favor. Sun and absolute calm on the lake make it possible to take several of those mirror image photos of the snow covered peaks that one only sees on postcards. Not a ripple disturbs our visage. A local we exchanged words with on the walk claimed we were lucky since this is the first time in over a month that the peaks were even visible much less experiencing a dead calm on the lake. Before we had finished the walk the ripples were appearing on the water and clouds were forming over the peaks. Luckily we had not heeded Rosemary’s advice and tramp around counterclockwise. We decided to ignore her warning because the only picnic table was much closer on the clockwise route. A growling stomach takes precedence over any errant leg cramps.

Of course the trail is nothing but hills and more hills and then more hills again. Rosemary’s words about walking counterclockwise because she didn’t like to walk up hill suddenly came back to me. Should we have gone the other way? Wait, this is ludicrous! Am I stupid or what? You start in the same place and regardless of whether you go left or right, you end up in the same place you started. You MUST climb every mountain and you MUST stumble down into every vale. What possible difference could the direction make? I’m still thinking about this conundrum when we arrive at the Fox Glacier. This tramp promises a close up view of the face and only a twenty minute tramp along a river bed. They lied. It is a mile into the glacier… along a riverbed yes… but there is a steep hill in the middle that one must climb to get to a place where one can step from unstable stone to rocking stone to unstable stone in order to ford three small tributaries. The end view was about 50 yards from the face and somewhat anti-climactic. However the many “DANGER DANGER DANGER” signs made for a great photo op for bragging to friends about my devil-may-care, adventurous nature.

Enough of the chasing glaciers and tramping bullshit and we drive in a comfortable heated car to a place called Haast where we find a room, dump our bags, grab a bottle of decent NZ cab and head to the edge of the Tasman Sea once again for sundowners on the beach. Beaches and sunsets are always romantic and although not quite as memorably colorful as the previous one in Punakaiki, there is a bit of color painted across the horizon. There is also a bit of a sandfly infestation. This sunset is viewed through a dirty windshield from inside the car while swatting the little devils that rushed in when we opened the doors. Romance is a tenuous condition.