I’ve had plenty of memorable experiences in New Zealand so far and one of the most memorable of these is the Tasman Glacier Helicopter hike.
There are several companies that offer these guided tours so you might want to do some thorough research first. Take note though that these tours aren’t the cheapest.
Depending on the operator, you’re looking at around 800NZD to 900NZD to experience a hike on New Zealand’s largest glacier. For this outing, I went with Inflite as it was around 799NZD.
Helicopter Ride From Mount Cook to Tasman Glacier: 45 Minutes of Fun and Adventure
Pickup at Hermitage Hotel
I’m not sure with other operators but the one that I got picked me up from the Hermitage Hotel. This is a hotel in Mt Cook Village that actually has some really awesome views of Mt. Sefton, Mt. Cook, and other mountains in the Southern Alps. While the ride to the airport was relatively uneventful, I was already quite excited at the thought of riding a helicopter and exploring the glacier.
After reaching the airport and disembarking from the van, I caught a glimpse of the mountains surrounding the Tasman River valley. The ones here in the background of the image though are to the west of the valley and so the helicopter won’t be going anywhere near them. The glacier is found north east and quite a long way from the airport.
Speaking of the airport, here’s what it looks like. As you can see, it’s actually quaint and not too expansive. It’s a medium sized airport with the majority of its air traffic being from smaller aircraft like helicopters and ski planes. I was actually expecting it to be a little bigger but then I realized that it’s mainly just for helicopter and plane tours in this area rather than commercial flights to and from the rest of the country.
When I stepped inside it was quite crowded as there were already people here waiting for their tours to start. I’m not sure if you could see, but one of the groups here even had a little kid with them though I’m not sure if they opted for the hike or just the heli ride. From what I’ve been told and from my own research, you can bring kids to these tours so long as they’re 10 years or older.
While the airport’s lobby might be small, I will say that it can be pretty homey. The cushioned chairs in particular were really comfortable to sit on. That said, the airport personnel were really quite efficient so I didn’t have to wait long and I was almost out the door the moment I came in.
Here you’ll find a list of things that you’re not allowed to bring to the aircraft. Now, you’re probably wondering why beanies, scarves, and hats (among others) are not allowed. Visitors are discouraged from wearing and bringing these because they can be easily sucked by the helicopters’ rotors and/or blown off by strong winds in the glacier. Thankfully, you can still bring your glasses as well as phones and cameras along with you for the tour as they’re typically heftier and won’t get easily blown off or sucked.
After exiting the airport, I made a beeline to the helicopter landing pad for a look at the rides we were going to take for today. In the background, you’ll see the Tasman River Valley which is the general direction where the helicopter is going to be taking us. The river valley is said to be thousands of years old and has been around since the last Ice Age.
Here you’ll see helicopters being readied for their tours. Unlike your typical commercial airport, there aren’t a set or regular number of flights here per day. Rather, flights are dictated by the weather as well as the seasonal demand. During my visit, it was relatively busy though I’m not quite sure if the number of people here would be considered the maximum.
I’m finally seated! After some pre-flight checks, we were now ready for takeoff. As with any helicopter ride, you can expect to be given aviation headsets. If you don’t want to go crazy and or deaf then please make sure to wear this.
Look, everyone on my tour group wore theirs! Kidding aside, the helicopter’s rotors are really loud and even having the aviation headsets wasn’t enough to completely drown out the sound. That said, wearing the headsets was still definitely better than not having them cover your ears.
Here’s the delta where the smaller Hooker River joins the Tasman River. If you’ve read my Hooker Valley Track write-up, you’ll know that if you follow the Hooker River back to its source, you’ll come across the First Swing Bridge of the trail as well as the awesome views of Mueller Lake. This was honestly such a cool thing to see as I’d just finished the track a day or two before this Tasman Glacier Heli Hike.
A wider angle view of the Tasman and Hooker Rivers. Then far off in the distance, you can see a glimpse of Mt Sefton with the Mt. Cook Range in the middle ground. This was honestly such a wild looking panorama that I kind of found myself mesmerized. In fact, I don’t think the whirring of the helicopter’s rotors bothered me at this point even though I could still kind of hear them.
If the Hooker River had Lake Mueller as its source, the Tasman River had the Tasman Lake. Now compared to Tekapo, the Tasman actually occupies a much smaller area. In fact, I think it’s not even half the area of Lake Tekapo. Still, the lake has this rugged yet magical charm (like Lake Mueller) to it that I think sets it apart from the larger lake.
It wasn’t just the lake that was fascinating to look at though. Up until this point, I’d been appreciating the beauty of the Southern Alps’ mountains from afar. As I’m riding the helicopter though, I found myself even more drawn to the mountains now that I see their peaks and ridges.
This is the first picture I took of the glacier. Our pilot graciously turned the helicopter so that we could see the southernmost tip of the glacier as well as its proximity to Tasman Lake. This was honestly really cool to look at. I’d seen pictures of the glacier beforehand but those didn’t prepare me for the real thing. It just looks massive from here and that’s not even its entirety.
Remember the sign earlier that showed that you were allowed to bring sunglasses? Well, this is why. Since the helicopter can elevate pretty high up even above the clouds, you can expect the sun’s rays to be much brighter. Without sun glasses and the clouds blocking it, the UV radiation from sun’s rays could pose serious damage to your eyes.
The views of the mountains while on the helicopter were honestly breathtaking. I particularly liked how the clouds seemed to become one with the peaks at some point. If you’ve ever heard of the term “sea of clouds”, then this is probably the most apt example of it.
Oh look, here’s another section of the glacier. So I’ve been reading about the Tasman Glacier before and after visiting here and I learned that it’s actually gotten smaller over the years much like the Mueller Glacier (which I talked about in my Hooker Valley Track writeup). The culprit for this is again, the rising global temperature which has resulted in the glacier melting and the forming of Tasman Lake.
Here’s another look at the clouds in the mountains surrounding the glacier. Looking back to this now, I can’t help but think how fortunate I was that the whole week was relatively nice in terms of the weather. Granted, the weather here in the Southern Alps is actually a little better compared to other alpine regions in the world (especially during the winter season).
See the area at the foot of the mountains that is seemingly covered with snow? That’s the Tasman Glacier. Essentially, this is more or less 18000 years worth of snow that’s accumulated and has compacted into ice (at least the area that’s underneath the snow seen in the picture). Initially I thought that this was going to be similar to the Mueller Glacier but it’s actually so much larger.
This is another reminder to bring sunglasses when you come here. There weren’t any clouds at the time this picture was taken so the sun was shining fully and I kid you not, the glare kind of hurt my eyes a little. Again, you’re going to be a little closer to the sun thanks to the altitude so definitely make sure you bring your best pair of sunglasses with you.
Here’s another section of the glacier. Despite me being airborne, I still had a hard time taking a picture of the whole glacier. As a result, I was only really able to take pictures of its sections. And it’s not just me, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an amateur photo of the whole glacier. More often than not, the pictures of the whole glacier that I’ve seen were by professionals with professional-grade photography equipment.
Now, this isn’t to discourage you from taking pictures. Even though I was limited to taking photos of just sections of the glacier, these still ended up looking pretty cool. On a side note, I was kind of scared that there’d be an avalanche here because from this angle, it looked like there was a recent incident. Turns out, I was just being paranoid as there was no avalanche advisory during this hike.
Now, it’s not like my paranoia didn’t have any basis. Just look at this. When I looked at this, it felt like if somebody shouted really loudly the echoes would cause all this snow to tumble down. Thankfully the NZAA is quite reliable and it just so happened that the day of our visit to Tasman Glacier, the advisory for the Mt. Cook National Park (which the glacier is a part of) was set to low.
Upon touching down, I couldn’t believe my eyes at what I was seeing. The sun was only an hour or two out but it already seemed like I’d go blind if I looked at it head on. Again, bringing a pair of sunglasses will do you well here.
I’m not going to lie, it kind of felt unreal being on that glacier. Prior to being here, I really thought that nothing could top Castle Hill when it came to alien and/or otherworldly landscapes. The vibe here on the Tasman Glacier isn’t necessarily alien but it does seem and feel otherworldly though in a good way.
And here’s a look at the helicopter that the group that I was in rode on. Just a side since I don’t think I’ve talked about it yet, but the heli ride was actually very smooth. The pilot was quite skilled and it didn’t feel like I was a sardine in a can during the whole ride too. Our guide also was very communicative during the ride which really kept doldrums to a minimum.
While we were walking to a designated area for the hike, I decided to take more photos of our helicopter. Suffice to say, I fell in love with the scenery here. I mean, who wouldn’t? I was actually pinching myself mentally because it all felt like I was looking at a picture up close. Otherworldly and surreal are the words that definitely best describe this landscape to me.
Now, one other thing that you might notice is the presence of what looks to be smoke or what I initially called “snow dust”. Turns out, this is called advection fog and it’s actually quite cool (pun intended) how it forms. Basically this happens when warm air moves across a cold surface. In this case, the air here was warm (no doubt thanks to the sun being out) relative to the snowy ground and so we then got this advection fog.
Now, notice how this small hill doesn’t have advection fog? Why do you think that is? Yes, you guessed right. It’s in shadow so it’s not as exposed to the sun and warm air. If you’re observant, there’s actually quite a lot of things that you’ll notice and learn while you’re here on the glacier.
After landing, there is a designated area to snow walk, for safety, cannot walk too far.
Now I think I said this earlier, but there’s a designated area where visitors can walk around after their helicopters have landed. Instead of walking around though, the first thing I did when I got to that area was to sit on the soft snow! Kidding aside, the area was relatively large and there were actually flags that indicated where you could walk around in.
Here’s one of the participants in the tour walking pretty far from the rest of their group. I’m not sure if this was the case all the time but it seemed like the higher up the glacier you were the firmer the snow got. Case in point would be the spot where I took this shot and the area where the tour participant is in the picture.
Speaking of tour participants, here are a number of them enjoying their walks and taking pictures. You’ll also notice a group that brought along kids (the ones we saw at the airport lobby) to have fun. The general vibe of the people here was just a great mix of excitement and fun which ended up being really infectious. Now I probably just lucked out with the groups that booked the same time as me so remember that this might not be the case for your own trip here.
As the day we went on, the sun grew even stronger and if I wasn’t wearing any sunglasses then my eyes would’ve probably been uncomfortable at best. You see, the snow kind of acts like a reflector of the sun’s light and without glasses you might end up with something called snow blindness. It’s basically if your cornea had sunburn and it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.
Besides, not having sunglasses will also mean that you’ll be missing out on making snow angels. Like imagine making a snow angel while staring straight at the sun? Kidding aside, if there’s one thing that I didn’t like about this specific tour, it’s that it kind of feels lacking.
So what I mean is that for the duration of the tour, participants were really just relegated to the designated area for walking around. It was nice but I kind of wanted something more. I don’t know if it was just me but after a couple of minutes taking pictures, I had this urge to really explore more of this landscape.
And you really couldn’t blame me because there’s something about the views here that really piques your curiosity. It’s as if it awakens some primal urge to explore and see more of its beauty. Now it’s not like there aren’t tour packages that offer more than just a guided walking tour. In fact, if you time your booking you might even be able to catch tours for skiing and even ice climbing.
So you’re probably wondering, why didn’t I get those tour packages instead? Well, they weren’t really cheap. Like if I went for the ski tour package, I was looking at a whopping 6999NZD for a group of six. That meant I had to shell out more or less 1400NZD which is around half of what I spent for this specific tour. Despite this, I think this base heli hike package was still great and if you set your expectations, you’re definitely going to have fun here.
With the tour done, we then proceeded back to the airport. This was perfect timing as the clouds were just starting to cover everything and our guide didn’t want to risk possible inclement weather conditions out on the glacier. It was kind of bittersweet going back but at the same time, the tour really wasn’t supposed to last long.
After touching down, I actually felt happy and a little relieved. At the start of the tour I was really excited yet at the same time anxious that something might happen or that the experience might not be what I expected. When I got back to Mt. Cook Airport, I was already able to reflect on my experience and it actually more than lived up to my expectations.
This is a handful of snow that I managed to keep as a souvenir of my time at Tasman Glacier. Now, I understand that it’s kind of “dumb” to bring back snow as a souvenir but really this was just a symbolic gesture more than anything. The memories of that tour as well as the pictures that I took of the landscapes on that glacier were the real souvenirs for me. And unlike this handful of snow, I’m sure that the memories of the time I spent on that glacier will stay with me forever.
My sappy sentiments aside, I decided to check out my surroundings now that I’m here at the airport’s runway. I don’t think I saw this when I got here earlier but the runway now had a ski plane. It looked like it just landed and my guess is that it flew in another group from a different tour before we managed to land here.
You probably didn’t notice it but if you checked the previous images, you could see the tracks this plane made on the Tasman Glacier’s snow. In fact, our helicopter actually landed quite close to where those tracks were. As for which company owns the plane, it’s by Mt. Cook Ski Planes and Helicopters which I think is one of the original tour operators here.
Here’s a final look at the helicopter and plane runway here at Mt Cook Airport. It was finally time for me to get a move on and I was still feeling a little disbelief at what I just experienced that day. From the helicopter ride to the guided walk around on the Tasman Glacier, these were undoubtedly some of the best memories I’ve had of this trip.
I finally end this writeup with this amazing view of Mt. Sefton. Overall, I think the Tasman Glacier Heli Hike was more than worth it. Yes, it was rather expensive but the experience of being on the Tasman Glacier and my memories of that day were absolutely priceless. If there was one thing I would’ve wanted it was really for the tour to have included more activities. Otherwise, I’d say that this was an experience that I’d recommend visitors to New Zealand try at least once.
But what if you don’t have the money for a Tasman Glacier Heli Hike? Well, there’s actually an alternative that might just be as good. Yes, you read that right! I actually have another write-up about a scenic walk that will get you to the lake and within viewing distance of the glacier. Of course, that’s going to be a separate story so make sure you seek that out once it’s published.
How about you? Ever had the chance to visit the Tasman Glacier? If yes then don’t hesitate to share your experiences and what you thought of the tour that you joined in the comments section!
