We woke up early to buckets of water pouring down from the clouds as we geared up to hike to the terminal end of Fox Glacier. The company prepared us well for the weather, though, by giving us head to toe rain gear. As we hiked to the glacier, our guide explained how quickly the ice has thawed and frozen, changing size drastically within just a few years. In just 2008, some of the rocky areas that we hiked on today were covered in glacier. Since the weather has been warming, the glacier has retreated and melted back, but it's expected to be back to the size it was in 2008 within the next 10 years. It was really important for us to be with a guide because there is rainfall in the Fox Glacier area 200 days a year, causing many rock avalanches and sometimes gushes of water to break through the glacier. The experts trained as guides kept us together in a big group during dangerous sections of terrain, and I felt very safe overall!
The cool part about being there for the rain was seeing all of the beautiful waterfalls in the canyon area! The rain acts to clean the ice off and also filled some of the streams and waterfalls that aren't active every day.
We then continued on a scenic drive to Queenstown which took about 5 hours (see pictures below), and we'll be here for 3 nights! We're headed out for a group dinner soon and then getting rest before tomorrow's adventures!
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