Franz Josef heli-hike: what it is, what it costs, and whether it is worth it

For most of the twentieth century you could park at the end of the Franz Josef valley, walk up the riverbed for forty minutes and step onto the ice with a guide. That is how the glacier was sold, and it is why the village exists in the shape it does.

That stopped. The terminal face retreated up its own valley and left behind a slope of loose rock and unstable ice that no operator will take a group across. The public track now ends at a viewpoint several hundred metres short of the ice, and the ice keeps moving away from it.

So the guided walk moved into the air. A helicopter puts you above the broken section, onto a part of the glacier that is stable enough to walk, and takes you off again. That is the whole product. It is not a scenic flight with a walk bolted on; the flight is the access road.

Check-in and gear. You arrive at the operator's base in the village about thirty minutes before the flight. You are weighed — everybody is — and issued boots, crampons, a waterproof jacket and overtrousers. Bring warm layers to go underneath; the gear keeps water and wind off, not cold.

The flight in. Ten minutes. The village drops away, the Waiho riverbed opens out, and the machine climbs alongside the icefall before setting down on a flat shelf above it.

On the ice. The guide fits your crampons and you walk. Two and a half hours of it, in a group, following a route the guides cut and re-cut as the ice moves. Crevasses, meltwater channels, ice caves when the season allows, and blue walls that photograph badly and look extraordinary in person.

The flight out. Another ten minutes, usually by a different line so you see the other side of the valley. You are back in the village around four hours after you started.

The standard 2.5-hour heli-hike is the one almost everybody books, and the 398 reviews on it against a handful on the extended version say so. It gives you the crevasse field, the blue ice and enough time to stop taking photographs and just look around.

The extended version is a different day. Up to five and a half hours on the ice, a smaller group, a private guide and lunch on the glacier. It costs $382 more and takes the whole day. It is worth it if you are here specifically for the glacier and the weather has given you a clear window; it is not worth it if Franz Josef is a stop on a drive.

One practical difference: a longer day on the ice is more exposed to the weather turning. The standard hike can be flown in a shorter clear spell.

It is a walk on uneven ice for two and a half hours, at altitude, in crampons. The operators publish a fitness requirement and they mean it. If stairs are difficult, this is not the way to see the glacier — a scenic flight with a snow landing gives you the same aerial views and ten minutes standing on flat snow, for less than half the money.

It is also the product most exposed to cancellation. A scenic flight needs a clear hour; a heli-hike needs a stable half day, because the operator has to be confident of getting you off the ice again. In a bad week the flights go and the hikes do not.