Saturday, May 12

May 12, 2007

Josh and I woke up to sunny skies this morning. Amazingly we’ve lucked out so much when it comes to weather and our tours. Heli hikes in this region are notorious for being canceled due to weather and that’s why we are staying here two nights…just in case our tour got canceled due to weather. It doesn’t look like there will be any cancellations today.

I got started on breakfast while Josh was still in bed. I made scrambled eggs and toast with hot tea and coffee. Josh puts so much sugar in his tea that it makes us go through all the packets that they give us. We’ll need to get some more. We sat outside at the patio table in the sunlight eating our breakfast. It was very nice.

We showered and got dressed for the day. We bought some special quick dry, zip off into shorts, pants at the Warehouse a couple of weeks ago specifically for this trip. We put those on and I had my Under Armor on too. We were set to go and on the road at 10. I put the Please Make Up Our Room sign on the door.

We parked on the side of the road up from the Helicopter Line office. We went in and while we were checking in, they said not to bring a backpack with you. So, we had to return to the car to put the backpack in the trunk. We hand carried a bottle of water and the camera. Just as we got back to the office, they were getting people ready to go to the helicopter site…I quickly used the toilet and caught up with the group who were, by this point, across the street and through the forest at the helicopter launching site.

There were about 22 people on the tour. First, we stood in line to get the proper gear: boots, wool socks, ice crampons, and a raincoat if needed. That sorted, we went outside and were split up into four groups...there were two groups of Fast and and two groups of Slow. Josh and I went for the slow group to play it safe. Josh and I were in a group with four other people.

The groups first three groups went off and took the helicopters up to the glacier. Finally, it was our turn. The helicopter ride was incredible. Smooth ride but so high up. Craziness! The views were spectacular. We totally lucked out with the clear skies we had. The snow up above the glacier was so cool because it just snowed yesterday.

Off of the helicopter, we met Anthony the tour guide. He told us how to put the ice crampons on our boots. Okay, that done, we were off. Or so we thought.

We walked around a bit and then we stopped so Anthony could answer any questions we had. Basically, it seemed like he was stalling for time. Okay, hike some more…other people need to figure out the crampons and get some confidence while walking on the glacier. They didn’t trust that they wouldn’t fall and kept going slow and bent over. Come on people.

But really, it wasn’t the people in the group that sucked, it was the “guide” that did. This kid was pathetic really. We hardly walked, yet alone HIKED, anywhere and when we reached a pool of water that was frozen on top, he asked if anyone wanted to swim. One girl did, so she went in while we all waited. Okay, fine. But Anthony was like "anyone else, anyone else". He was just wasting our time…let’s freaking do something…I thought this was supposed to be a HIKE!!!!

Then, I’m not joking, and this totally pissed me off, we got to another smaller pool of water and he asked the group, “Do you want to see me swim?”

NO, I DON’T WANT TO WATCH MY GUIDE SWIM!!! I want you to lead me on a tour and show me some glacier caves and formations. OH MY GOSH! I was infuriated. So, the guy strips down to his shorts and boots, walks around the pool of water and then decides not to go in, gets dressed again, all the while we are standing out there twiddling our thumbs waiting to get a move on.

I mean, just because we picked the “slow” group didn’t mean we didn’t want to hike around. Seriously, we did not pay $500 USD to watch our guide attempt to swim in a glacial pool. Lame. I don’t think my expectations were unrealistic here.

So, the walk came to an end, we took off our crampons and waited for the helicopters to take us down. The clouds were starting to roll in at that time so we had really lucked out with having sunny skies while we were up there.

My fear kicked in while we were waiting for the helicopter and I couldn’t shake the thought of what I’d do if there was an avalanche. Truthfully, I thought I would head in the opposite direction from Anthony because I would not want to be stuck with that guy even under the worst circumstances.

On the helicopter ride down, I got to sit in the front seat. The helicopter ride was wicked again and really, the helicopter rides were the best part of the experience (this is saying a lot as I hate to fly). When we were on the ground, we could really see the cloud cover. The mountains were hardly visible from below.

We went back to the grocery store and I bought another chicken curry and Josh bought another pizza bread. I also bought the best caramel/chocolate ice cream bar ever!!! I was really hungry by that point. Back to the villa which had not been cleaned because the sign had blown off the door knob. Bummer. We requested fresh towels, coffee, milk, and sugar. I took the trash out myself.

We made lunch and I updated the blog and the travel journal while Josh took a nap. Tonight, American Idol is on and the blog is updated although the pictures take to long to upload so I won’t be doing that tonight. I’ve got the pictures (some anyway) on shutterfly so I can share those with everyone back in the states.