Tasman Glacier flight

A helicopter flight up around the mountains and landing on a glacier wasn’t something on our “to do” list. We’d been doing a few tramps around Fox and Franz Joesf with helicopters buzzing back

and forth while we were tramping and discussed how great it would be to land on a glacier. We were heading out of Franz Joesf and the subject came up again so we pulled over to check out pricing. We decided to head back and see if we could book a flight; they were fully booked for the rest of that day however we were able to book a flight for 9.30am the following morning at HeliServices.NZ…all dependent on weather, they would only fly

if they had good visibility. We headed for Okarito camp ground for the night. The following morning we were completely clouded in and our hopes of doing the flight weren’t looking great, however by the time we had breakfast and headed back to Franz Joesf the skies had cleared…..excitement was building. We checked in and waited for our briefing…..we were the only 2 at the briefing. We were escorted to the helipad and waited for the helicopter to return from the previous flight. When we were boarding the pilot (Richard??) asked how we managed to get the helicopter to ourselves. We lifted off and headed to Fox and it wasn’t long before we had views of Mount Cook….Richard stated that as there was only 2 of us he had more uplift and we were able to gain height quicker than normal.

The views were stunning as we climbed above the tree covered ranges and as we flew around the mountains Richard pointed out the various mountains, rangers, glaciers and huts, my head spun trying to locate them all…Mount Cook, Fox glacier, Mount Sefton, way too many for me to remember. “Look down there, there’s a helicopter on the glacier”….my eyes searched and finally located a small black dot that wasn’t recognizable as a helicopter and it was only then that the vast scale of what we were seeing suddenly dawned on me.

The textures were amazing as the terrain went form dry rock faces to smooth snow to deep

crevices. Over there, see the red hut, that’s Pioneer hut, my eyes searched and spotted a small red hut in the distance......soon we were close enough that you felt like

you could reach out and touch it. Richard pointed out that he can’t normally go around the hut, however as there were only 2 passengers he was able to get enough uplift. “There’s Centenial hut” as we buzzed another hut. We circled around and descended onto the

Franz Joesf glacier; Richard pointed out that we were landing on ice/compacted snow that was 300 metres deep. We stepped out into 100mm of fresh powder snow. We spent about10 minutes taking in the stunning vistas and taking photos before it was time to head off. On the way back we buzzed another couple of huts, the Elmer

being one of them. We descended back down the valleys and were soon back on the launch pad. Thanks Richard and HeliServices for the amazing experience…..I was still buzzing for quite a while after.