![]() ![]() ![]() The rains also triggered an enormous landslide in the Fox River valley that washed away about 150 m of the northern glacier access road and destroyed the car park. On 26 March 2019 heavy rains caused flooding in the area, destroying the Waiho Bridge across State Highway 6 at Franz Josef. On 21 November 2015, seven people were killed when a Eurocopter Écureuil (squirrel) helicopter operated by Alpine Adventures crashed on the glacier. Two Australian tourists were killed in January 2009 after they crossed safety barriers and walked 500 m to the terminal face to take photos. Safety warnings were ignored, however, by up to one third of the 600,000 tourists a year visiting West Coast glaciers. The northern road led to main car park for tourists who wanted to walk up to the glacier face, although barriers and warning signs prevented them from entering the "danger zone" close to the active glacier face. In the early 1930s and early 1940s roads were built up the northern and southern sides of the valley to improve access. A hut was also built at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) on Craig's Peak (6,000 feet (1,800 m)) for overnight climbing trips. At an altitude of 1200 m, it was designed to provide climbing opportunities to tourists, rather than as a staging post for mountaineers climbing on the Great Divide. It is the oldest remaining mountain hut in the Southern Alps still on its original site, and is a Category II Historic Building on the Heritage New Zealand list. Planned by mountain guides Alec and Peter Graham in 1929, all the materials had to be packed up Fox Glacier manually in 1930 in the days before helicopter airlifts. Eventually the northern route became the main access road for tourists.Ĭhancellor Hut was built in 1930–31 on the southwest face of Chancellor Ridge, now 200 m above the glacier. As the glacier retreated a gallery was built along the side of Cone Rock to allow access, until it retreated still further. ![]() They could climb onto the ice at a lunch shelter at the Chalet Viewpoint, built in 1931 (and which burnt down in 1973). Access to the glacier was via a track along the north side of the Fox River valley and across a swingbridge. Official glacier guiding began at this point, employing well-known mountaineers like Frank Alack, Harry Ayres, and Tom Christie. Visitors to Weheka would stay in the Williams or Sullivan homesteads, until in 1928 the Sullivan brothers opened the first hotel in the valley, the 40-room Fox Glacier Hostel (which, expanded and refurbished several times over the years, is still operating as a hotel). In the 1920s Westland was being marketed as a tourist destination for the scenic vistas of its mountains, lakes and forests. Harper and William Wilson, and had built the first hut there, known as the iron hut, near the 1896 glacier terminal. Geography ĭouglas had previously surveyed the glacier with A.P. With the passage of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, the glacier's name changed once again to Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe. "In those ancient days I did not pay much attention to the glaciers," he later wrote. Įxplorer Charlie Douglas had already visited the glacier himself in the 1860s, looking for a cow. The Victoria Glacier kept its name, but the lower part of the Albert Glacier was renamed in 1872 after a visit by then Premier of New Zealand Sir William Fox. In 1865, German geologist Julius von Haast was the first to explore and survey the glaciers at the head of this valley, and named them Victoria and Albert, after the queen and her consort. In 1857 local Māori led Pākehā Leonard Harper and Edwin Fox to both glaciers, the first Europeans to see them. Rangi the Sky Father took pity on her and froze them to form the glacier now known as Franz Josef the glacier now known as Fox marks Tuawe's resting place. Hine Hukatere was broken-hearted and her many, many tears flowed down the mountain. Tuawe was a less experienced climber than Hine Hukatere but loved to accompany her, until an avalanche swept him from the peaks to his death. According to oral tradition, Hine Hukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover Tuawe to climb with her. The glacier is known by local Māori as Te Moeka o Tuawe ('The bed of Tuawe'). It is a major tourist attraction and about 1000 people daily visit it during high tourist season. Like nearby Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, with a terminal face as low as 300 m above sea level, close to the village of Fox Glacier. 43☂7′52″S 170☁′4″E / 43.46444°S 170.01778☎ / -43.46444 170.01778įox Glacier ( Māori: Te Moeka o Tuawe officially Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe) is a 13-kilometre-long (8.1 mi) temperate maritime glacier located in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.
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