![]() Waiting for me at the top is senior mountaineering guide Phil Crossland, who’s been leading wide-eyed visitors across the crevasses since 2017. But, unlike those other antisocial glaciers, Franz Josef is just 11 miles from the west coast and only 980 feet above sea level, making it one of the most accessible hiking glaciers on the planet. Most of them are inaccessible, except to the most serious mountaineers. New Zealand’s Southern Alps ripple 400 miles down the western flank of the South Island and has around 3,000 glaciers stuffed into its many folds. Even though it’s a sunny day, the temperature is -6C and the cold radiating from the glacier bites my fingers. Beyond I can see the Tasman Sea winking up at us. Painterly mountains with snowy crowns encircle us on all sides bar downhill, where the valley leads to the small township of Waiau we had just flown from. The pilot sets us down on its surface to disembark and then he’s gone again in a whirr, leaving us in awed silence. Lush trees surrender to moraine and then the fissured surface of Franz Josef Glacier, which, from the air, looks like a tsunami frozen in time. Looking out of the window, I can see our shadow shrink until we’re just a black fly speeding across farmlands, riverbeds and rainforests. The helicopter’s purr deepens to a roar as the rotors gain pace and lift us into the air. ![]() ![]() This article was adapted from National Geographic Traveller (UK). ![]()
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