Getting in touch with the Tasman Glacier.
The Tasman Valley located in the Aoraki / Mount Cok National Park is home to the largest Glacier in New Zealand with a distance of 17km. On a very fine Sunny Day, I took the chance to go out with the Glacier Explorers onto the Tasman Glacier Lake, The Glacier Lake has only been around for 40 years. Before that it simply did not exist in it’s Liquid state. It was all still part of the Glacier.
The 2.5 hour Tour involved a small 20 minute walk from the Carpark to the Glacier Lake. On the way I was quickly adopted by an American Family, as one of there own for the trip. As a single person its easy to quickly strike up a converstaion. They where on a two week trip through the South of New Zealand, my 12 day Itinerary here.
Its so unreal to see the Icebergs this close, remembering 90% is still underwater. To see them formed up close like a bunch of crystals slowly packed and condested into one block over time. The water has a temperatarue of 4˚C , where the Core of the iceberg is up to – 5. So in a sence if a piece of Ice breaks of the Glacier, the “Iceberg” will melt away slowly in the “warm” water.
I really enjoyed this Tour, not only do you get do be up front, close and personal with an Iceberg but it is such an amazing experience to be on a Glacier Lake. I would not really want to go swimming in this Temperature so being on the Glacier Lake, was great on a beautiful Sunny Day. There are not a lot of times that you can be this close to an Iceberg as well. Another thing I really appreciated was the fact that the information about the area was presented in an easy way to remember. Not with a bunch of Fluffy words around it, because who really cares about the millions of facts, where we can only remember half or even less? So would I recommend this, yes I definately. In case you would much rather stand on the Tasman Glacier, of course that is also possible by mean of a Helicopter.
Each year the glacier melts away a stunning and ridiculous amount of 150m. Another example of the world climate change. See the Boat that is where the Glacier was just two years ago (last image below) Amazing huh? And yes that is 300m from the boat to the Glacier.
What do you think about the Tasman Glacier retreating so much every year?
Living and Working in certain Areas gives you some perks, this free tour was given to all employees of the Hermitage Hotel in Mount Cook. Thank you Glacier Explorers for having me. This is entirly my own opinion and not influenced from others or third parties.
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