Foxy

Back from a blogging hiatus.  Work has been too busy.  I enjoyed a mountaineering trip from the 18th-22nd of January with the Melbourne Uni Mountaineering Club.  To the left is food for 5 men during a 10 day span.  The beauty of this mountaineering trip is that we had a helicopter to take us near the hut that we would stay at.  Therefore, we had steak, wine, dessert, etc... It was much different from my usual U.S. trips, where I bring tuna, noodles, and many bars of all sorts. 

After arriving in Christchurch in the early morning, we drove to the Porter Lodge at Fox.  Embarrassingly, I left my wallet in Melbourne, but luckily, I packed away my NZ bank card.  It wasn't the ideal thing to forget.  It did mean that I couldn't lose it on the trip.  We were grounded for the first day due to bad weather in the mountains.  Therefore, we focused on packing properly, eating, drinking, and reviewing the weather for the week. 

We awoke early on the following morning to catch a ride with Heli Services out of Fox.  The helicopters are limited to sight rules of flying.  Therefore, they need high visibility and good contrast.  There were minimal clouds, giving great visibility.  However, gale force winds and the early sunrise made it difficult to land on the glacier.  Our pilot did manage to find a location, slightly further from the hut than usual, but still close.  We stayed at the Pioneer hut, which had numerous crevasses between the "helipad" and the hut.