Twenty-five kilometres apart
Two glaciers come off the same icefield on the West Coast, twenty-five kilometres and about twenty-five minutes of driving apart. Both run heli hikes. Both lost their walking routes to the same retreat. Visitors with one clear morning spend a surprising amount of energy choosing between them, so here is the comparison on the things that actually differ.
Quick answer
The short answer. Heli hike at Franz Josef. It has more operators, more departures a day and more beds to wait out the weather in, and the ice above the icefall is the more broken and more interesting of the two on foot. Fox is quieter, cheaper to sleep in and closer to Lake Matheson, which makes it the better base if you have a car and three nights.
On the ice
Franz Josef is more broken and more dramatic. Fox is calmer and quieter. Neither is a lesser day.
Franz Josef is the steeper of the two. It drops out of a high névé through an icefall that is genuinely chaotic, and the terrain the heli hikes work in — above the icefall but below the névé — is correspondingly broken. Pressure ridges, tight corridors, and in a good season a lot of tunnels. It is more interesting to walk on and it looks more dramatic in photographs.
Fox is longer and lower-angled. It flows through a broader valley and reads, on foot, as a calmer landscape: wider ice, longer sight lines, fewer squeezes. Some people prefer it for exactly that reason, and the groups tend to be smaller because fewer people are there.
Both are being rebuilt continuously and both routes are cut fresh each morning, so what any given party actually walks through comes down to the week rather than the glacier.
On the ground
If you are hiking from one and sleeping in the other, this is the part that matters.
That means a better chance of being squeezed onto a later slot after a cancellation. On a coast where a large share of trips are weather-affected across the year, the depth of the schedule is a real advantage.
Fewer coaches, fewer people at the viewpoints, and rooms that cost less in January. With a car and three nights, Fox is the more pleasant base and the drive is nothing.
The reflection photograph of Aoraki Mount Cook in still black water is a twenty-minute walk from Fox Glacier village. Go at dawn, before any wind.
They sit twenty-five kilometres apart under the same systems. Driving to Fox because Franz Josef is clouded in almost never works. What does work is having two nights instead of one.
Both glaciers have retreated beyond safe foot access. Franz Josef lost its route when the terminal face collapsed in 2012. Both valley walks now end at viewpoints short of the ice.
Book direct
The heli hikes at Franz Josef, and the guided walk and scenic flight that work from Fox.
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★ 4.7 · 188 reviews
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Working out how many nights you need on this coast for the weather?
Weather and cancellations→Doing both
If you have three nights, the honest recommendation is not to choose. Heli hike at Franz Josef on your first clear morning, do the guided half-day walk in the Fox valley at $61 on another, and keep the third morning in reserve.
That combination gives you the ice underfoot, the shape of a glacier valley from ground level, and a spare day for the weather, for about $61 more than the hike alone. It is the best-value two days on the West Coast and almost nobody plans it that way, because the two villages market themselves separately.
Add Lake Matheson at dawn and you have the trip most people wish they had booked.
Common questions
Franz Josef, for most people. More operators, more departures a day, more beds to wait out the weather in, and more broken ice above the icefall, which makes better walking. Fox is quieter and calmer and is not a lesser day.
About twenty-five kilometres by road, roughly twenty-five minutes of driving. They come off the same icefield on opposite sides of the same ridge.
Franz Josef if you are hiking and have one or two nights, because the schedule is deeper. Fox if you have a car and three nights, because it is quieter, cheaper and twenty minutes from Lake Matheson.
No, in any way you can plan around. Twenty-five kilometres apart under the same systems. Driving from one to the other because the first is clouded in rarely helps.
Not from the valley floor, in the same way you cannot walk onto Franz Josef. Both glaciers have retreated beyond safe foot access and the valley tracks end at viewpoints short of the ice.
Easily, and it is the best use of three nights here. Heli hike at Franz Josef on your first clear morning, do the guided Fox valley walk at $61 on another, and keep the third in reserve for the weather.
Go deeper
What it is, what it costs, and why there is no way onto the ice without one.
PricesThree heli hikes priced against the scenic flight, and what the money actually buys.
VerdictThree heli hikes compared on time on the ice, group size and what is included.
Hike or flyThe most common wrong booking in Franz Josef, settled with both sets of numbers.
Hour by hourFrom the boot fitting to the pick-up, in order, with the boring parts left in.
WeatherWhy a hike is grounded more often than a flight, and how to build a trip around it.
