I woke up early the next morning for glacial hiking, or so I thought. Through my sleepiness, my dad told me that plans changed because the boat we had to take back to shore post-ice hiking broke down and that we would not have been able to go on the ice anymore. I was so bummed. And it got worse…if that happened, we would have to walk another tough 10.5 km with our big packs, which I truly didn’t think I was capable of doing – my knees were shaking at the prospect of it.
To make a long story short, our guide pulled through and was able to arrange for us to do the ice hike and take a little zodiac all the way back to land (instead of the broken down ship). I supposedly let out such a happy scream outside that the rest of our group inside heard me and knew that there must be good news.
Needless to say, within ten minutes we were on our way to go glacial hiking on Glacier Grey. As per usual, we had to hike to get there – another long, rocky, uphill journey. Since there were lots of loose rocks, and it was virtually straight up, we had to be careful. After about an hour hiking uphill, we finally reached the base of the expansive glacier. We were given helmets, harnesses (for incase we fell into a crevice), ice picks, and crampons. It didn’t take long to get used to the crampons and ice pick and, before we knew it, we were trekking along a glacier! The excitement I felt when I realized I was actually hiking on top of a glacier is absolutely impossible to describe. It was unreal. We hiked along, looking down tiny crevices, finding huge waterfalls, and admiring the absolutely pure-blue glacial water. We took a bit of a break next to the bluest, never ending pool of water and drank some hot chocolate. Since we were no longer on a time constraint thanks to the fact that we got to take the zodiac back, we decided to expand our journey even more and do some ice climbing, which was an absolute blast. It was truly an unforgettable, once in a lifetime experience.
