Walk on a glacier

“We were one of the first tours of the day which meant we had the glacier to ourselves when we arrived; we were ushered off the bus, told where we were and weren’t allowed to go, and left to enjoy the ice for about half an hour. It was cold walking on a glacier, as expected, and really quite surreal. The ice was not smooth and was very thin in places so we had to watch our footing as we walked around; there were holes here and there full of water and it was easy to put your foot through the ice if you stepped in the wrong place. There were also a couple of streams flowing with ice melt; naturally I wanted to try some, it was very clean tasting if that is a thing – I wasn’t sick from it so it must have been okay!”

“After each getting crampons and an ice axe, we set out across the rocky plain. Before the glacier starts, a small lake is in front. Briet told us that the glacier used to extend all the way here, but it’s retreating. Several icebergs were floating in the lake, which Briet said weren’t there the previous day. They had just appeared this morning, so we were lucky to see them.”