Most of the walking here is free. The Hooker Valley Track is ten kilometres return and about three hours, it is flat, and it ends at a lake with icebergs in it under the highest mountain in New Zealand. Sealy Tarns is 2,200 steps straight up. What none of them do is put you on a glacier — for that there is one product, and it starts with a helicopter.
The best-known walk
Hooker Valley TrackFree
10 km return, about 3 hours, flat, and no booking
Average rating
Across all 12 trips4.8 ★
Across 2,750 verified reviews
On the Tasman
The one you pay for$497
Three hours, with about 90 minutes walking on the ice
Everything you can book here
Twelve trips out of Aoraki / Mount Cook Village, Christchurch and Queenstown — three guided heli hikes onto the Tasman Glacier, six flights over it, and three day tours that walk the valley tracks with you. Sorted by price, cheapest first. The free walks are further down the page and they cost nothing.
★ 4.8 · 632 reviews
★ 4.8 · 566 reviews
★ 5.0 · 3 reviews
★ 4.7 · 514 reviews
★ 4.8 · 46 reviews
★ 4.7 · 356 reviews
★ 5.0 · 9 reviews
★ 4.7 · 22 reviews
★ 4.7 · 11 reviews
★ 4.9 · 322 reviews
★ 4.8 · 259 reviews
★ 4.3 · 10 reviews
Two questions
Seen the twelve above and still torn? There are really only four answers at Aoraki. Walk on the Tasman Glacier for ninety minutes. Land on the snow for ten. Walk the Hooker Valley with someone who can name what you are looking at. Or come for the day from Christchurch and see the lot from the road. Pick what matters and we will point at one.
See it before you pay for it
The clips below are the hike, not a promo reel. A helicopter lifts out of the village, flies past the east face of Aoraki and sets down at about 1,300 metres on the névé of the Tasman — 23.5 kilometres of ice, the longest glacier in New Zealand. Then it leaves, and you walk roughly two and a half kilometres across a surface that was rearranged by the melt last week.
Side by side
Three completely different days, and most people book the wrong one. The Hooker Valley Track is free, flat and takes an afternoon. A scenic flight lands high on the snow for ten minutes. The heli hike is three hours with ninety minutes of walking on the Tasman itself. Only one of them can be done without a booking, and only one of them puts you on a glacier.
Swipe the table sideways →
| 25-Minute Alpine Landing | TOP PICK3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli Hike | 3-Hour Heli Hike to the Tasman | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per person | $210 | $497 | $523 |
| Total trip length | 25 minutes | 3 hours | 3 hours |
| Time on the ice | ~10 min on snow | ~90 min walking | ~90 min walking |
| Cost per hour on the ice | $1235.29 | $331.33 | $348.67 |
| You are | Beside the machine | In crampons on the Tasman | In crampons on the Tasman |
| Gear supplied | None needed | Boots, crampons, jacket | Boots, crampons, jacket |
| Distance walked | A few metres | About 2.5 km | About 2.5 km |
| Rating | 4.7 · 514 | 4.9 · 322 | 4.8 · 259 |
| Best for | Seeing the whole park | Standing on the glacier | When the top pick is full |
| Check dates | Book this one→ | Check dates |
Free cancellation up to 24 h · Reserve now, pay later
Verdict
It is the only thing on this page that puts you on the ice for longer than a photograph, and that is the whole decision. The Hooker Valley Track is free and it is the better walk — but it stops at a lake, three kilometres and several hundred metres below the nearest glacier. The scenic flight lands you on snow for ten minutes beside the machine. Only the heli hike gives you ninety minutes and two and a half kilometres on the Tasman itself.
Check dates and availability→Before you book
In 1970 the Tasman had no terminal lake at all — just a scatter of meltponds on the ice. By 1990 they had merged, and by 2008 the lake was around seven kilometres long, two wide and two hundred and forty-five metres deep. That water is what stands between the end of Tasman Valley Road and the glacier. There is no track around it and no route across it, which is why every hour anyone spends on this ice begins in a helicopter.
Two-minute check
The valley tracks walk in almost any weather. The ice does not: a heli hike needs a window long enough for the machine to drop you and come back. Answer three questions and find out now instead of at the hangar.
How many nights are you at Aoraki?This decides your odds more than anything else
How is your fitness?You will walk on uneven ice for about 90 minutes
What do you want out of the day?This is the only real variable here
You'll get a straight yes or no, the flight that fits your day, and the specific thing that would trip you up at check-in.
Six ways to see it
Ratings are the operators’ own numbers on GetYourGuide, shown as published. We do not write reviews and we do not average other people’s into a score of our own.
★★★★★
Based on 2,750
verified reviews
All twelve Aoraki / Mount Cook trips on this page, rated on GetYourGuide.
Read all 2,750→3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli Hike
From $497 · 322 reviews
★★★★★
A helicopter past the east face of Aoraki, a landing at about 1,300 metres, and roughly ninety minutes walking on 23.5 kilometres of ice. Rated 4.9 across 322 reviews — the best-reviewed heli hike in the park.
The Hooker Valley Track
Free · 10 km return, about 3 hours
★★★★★
Ten kilometres return on a flat, well-made track over three swing bridges to a lake with icebergs floating in it, under the highest mountain in the country. The new second bridge, opened in July 2026, is 189 metres — the longest in New Zealand.
25-Minute Alpine Landing
From $210 · 514 reviews
★★★★☆
Twenty-five minutes over the park with a landing on the snow and the rotors stopped. Less than half the price of the heli hike, and a completely different day: you photograph the ice rather than walk on it.
Sealy Tarns and Mueller Hut
Free · 2,200 steps, 600 m of climb
★★★★☆
Sealy Tarns is 2,200 steps and six hundred metres of climb for the view everybody photographs. Above it, DOC says the Mueller Hut route needs mountaineering experience and can hold snow and ice from March to November. Those are two different days.
The Tasman Glacier View Track
Free · 300+ steps, about 15 minutes
★★★☆☆
Three hundred steps up the old moraine wall to a viewpoint over Tasman Lake — a lake that did not exist in 1970 and is now several kilometres long. Honest limit: you are looking at the end of the ice from a long way off, not at the glacier itself.
Tasman Heli Hike from Queenstown
From $995 · one day
★★★★☆
Scenic flights over the Main Divide both ways with the heli hike in the middle, and back to Queenstown the same evening. It removes eight hours of driving, and it costs about twice what the hike costs on its own.
What it really costs
This is the part no operator page will tell you. The best-known walk in the national park costs nothing, needs no booking and no guide, and takes three hours. What you pay for is the one thing it cannot give you: standing on the ice.
Swipe sideways →
| What you do | Price | What that buys | Cancellation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hooker Valley Track, on your own | Free | 10 km return, about 3 hours, flat, no booking | n/a |
| Guided day tour that walks the valley | $152 | Transport from Queenstown, guide, the same track | Free up to 24 hours |
| Heli hike on the Tasman Glacier | $497 | Helicopter both ways, boots, crampons, guide, ~90 min on the ice | Free up to 24 hours |
The honest answer
Five hundred dollars is a lot for three hours and we are not going to pretend otherwise — especially in a park where the most photographed walk is free. What you are buying is the only way to stand on the Tasman: the terminal face has been collapsing into a lake since the 1990s, and there is no route onto the ice on foot.
The day, hour by hour
The base watches cloud base and wind on the névé, not rain in the village. A wet morning in town is often a workable morning up top, and a bright one can be grounded.
Boots, crampons, a jacket, overtrousers and a small pack, all supplied. Bring your own warm layer and a pair of thick socks. Allow the full hour; the fitting is not quick.
How to approach the machine, how to walk in crampons, and what to do if the weather turns while you are up there. Then the doors close.
Over the terminal face, over the grey rubble the glacier left behind, and up past the icefall. Short, loud and completely worth the ticket on its own.
It sets down on the névé, you get out, and it lifts off again. The noise goes with it and what is left is silence and a guide with an ice axe.
Crampons on, single file, following steps that were cut this morning. Blue tunnels, pressure ridges, moulins, and a route that will not exist next week.
The machine comes back to the same spot, or to another one if the ice has moved. Five minutes down, and you are peeling off crampons in the village by mid-afternoon.
Best time of day
These two work in opposite directions, which is why you can do both in a day. Air over the Tasman is stillest early and cloud builds against the Divide from late morning, so the first departures are the ones that go. The Hooker Valley is the reverse: the coaches arrive mid-morning and leave by three, and after four the valley empties, the light comes down the length of it, and Aoraki turns gold at the far end. Fly at eight, walk at four, and you have used the day properly.
On the ground
About 90 minutes and 2.5 km, on the longest glacier in New Zealand.
Meltwater carves them and closes them again. Nothing here is in the same place twice.
Three swing bridges, ten kilometres return, and it costs nothing.
Rock flour ground fine by the ice is what turns the rivers and lakes that milky blue.
What it's like
Almost everyone arrives at Aoraki with the wrong idea of what the day costs. The most photographed walk in the national park — the one with the swing bridges and the lake full of icebergs — is free. It needs no guide, no booking and no equipment beyond a jacket. You park at White Horse Hill and you walk.
The Hooker Valley Track is five kilometres each way and DOC breaks it into three honest chunks: fifteen minutes to the first swing bridge, thirty more to the second, forty-five from there to the lake. Ten kilometres return, about three hours, and it climbs barely a hundred metres in all of it. In July 2026 the second bridge was replaced with a new one a hundred and eighty-nine metres long — the longest suspension bridge in the country.
What you get at the end is Hooker Lake, grey-blue with rock flour, usually with lumps of ice floating in it, and Aoraki standing three and a half thousand metres above the far end of the valley. People stand there for a long time.
So why would anybody pay five hundred dollars? Because none of the free walks touch a glacier. They cannot. The Tasman ends in a lake now — a lake that did not exist in 1970, formed as meltponds merged around 1990, and by 2008 was seven kilometres long and two hundred and forty-five metres deep. You cannot walk onto ice that ends in deep water.
The heli hike solves that by going over the top of it. The machine lifts out of the village, flies up the Tasman valley with the east face of Aoraki out of one window, and sets down at about thirteen hundred metres on the névé. Then it leaves, and the noise leaves with it.
The Tasman is 23.5 kilometres long, up to four kilometres wide and six hundred metres thick. For the whole of the twentieth century it sat at twenty-eight kilometres and did not move. Since the 1990s it has been going backwards fast, which is why the lake at the bottom keeps growing and why the route your guide cut this morning is not the route from last week.
The walking is about ninety minutes and two and a half kilometres. Crampons make you walk flat-footed and wide and for the first ten minutes you feel ridiculous, and then it clicks. What you walk through depends entirely on the season: pressure ridges, crevasse walls with blue light in them, and in late summer the meltwater tunnels that everybody photographs.
Then the machine comes back, five minutes down the valley, and it is still early afternoon. Which is the argument for doing both in one day — the ice in the morning, the Hooker Valley in the long light after four, when the coaches have gone and the valley belongs to whoever is still walking.
While you're in the valley
You need a spare day here for the weather, and Aoraki is a good place to lose one. A ski plane that lands on the snow, a flight along the whole length of the Tasman, and a night under the darkest sky in the country — the Mackenzie is an International Dark Sky Reserve, and it shows.
Practical
Five things decide how it goes: which walks you do and in what order, the hour you book the flight, the weather, what you wear, and whether you understood that SH80 is the only road in and out.
10 km return, about 3 hours, and flat. Three swing bridges to a lake with icebergs in it. The one to do if you only do one.
Two kilometres return from the same car park, about an hour, and it gives you the Mueller Glacier moraine wall.
2,200 steps and 600 metres of climb. DOC calls it steep and narrowing near the top. Half a day, and the view everybody photographs.
300-odd steps up the old moraine to look over Tasman Lake. Fifteen minutes, and a five-minute side trip to the Blue Lakes.
A shorter climb from the village itself, and the one people do on an evening when the light is good.
Above Sealy Tarns, and a different proposition: DOC says it needs mountaineering experience and holds snow and ice March to November.
Trainers are fine on the Hooker Valley in summer. A rain jacket is not optional at any time of year here.
DOC recommends microspikes and poles for the Hooker Valley in winter, because the shaded sections turn to sheet ice.
Boots stiff enough to take a crampon, the crampons, and a jacket. You bring thick socks and a warm layer.
No climbing and no ropes, but crampons change how you walk and the surface is never flat.
Glare off snow at 1,300 metres is severe. Operators hand them out if you arrive without.
Not on the ice, but at the car parks and along the rivers. Repellent is the most useful thing in your bag.
No permit, no fee, no guide. Park at White Horse Hill and go.
Three-hour slots are limited and the good mornings go first. Free cancellation to 24 hours means booking ahead costs nothing.
If it scrubs you still have a day in hand. If you book the last one you have nothing.
Office, platform or hotel desk, the fare is the same. Booking ahead buys a slot, not a discount.
Listings quote three hours total, including check-in, gear and both flights. The walking is about ninety minutes of it.
From Christchurch or Queenstown they are long days on a bus with a couple of hours at the mountain.
At the end of SH80, which leaves SH8 near Lake Pukaki and runs 55 km up the lake to the village. It is a dead end.
About four and a half hours by road. Day tours do it in thirteen hours, there and back.
About four hours via the Lindis Pass. Day tours run twelve hours.
DOC says so plainly: snow can close SH80. Check highway conditions before you drive in winter.
There is no cheap fuel up the valley. Twizel or Lake Tekapo are the last sensible stops.
The last flights leave mid-afternoon in winter, and the village is small. Do not plan an evening arrival.
Best time
The valley walks run all year and the helicopters need a window. What changes month to month is not the price but how often the ice is flyable and whether the tracks are sheeted with ice underfoot.
Feb – Apr
The most settled air of the year and the best ice underfoot. Late-summer melt opens the blue features on the Tasman, the tracks are dry, and the crowds have thinned after January.
Nov – Jan
Fifteen hours of daylight, every flight running, and every bed in the village booked. Lupins along the lakes in late November and December. Book everything well ahead.
Sep – Oct
Snow still lies on the upper tracks and Mueller Hut route needs mountaineering skills. The Hooker Valley is walkable, the flights are quieter, and fronts come through fast.
May – Aug
Short days, and DOC recommends microspikes and poles for the Hooker Valley because the shaded sections turn to sheet ice. Snow can close SH80 entirely. Clear winter days are the best light of the year and they come less often.
Worth knowing
The best-known walk in the park is free. The Hooker Valley Track needs no booking, no guide and no permit. Ten kilometres return, about three hours, and almost flat.
The new second swing bridge opened in July 2026 and is 189 metres long — the longest suspension bridge in New Zealand. Pages describing a closure beyond the second bridge are out of date.
You cannot walk onto the Tasman Glacier. It ends in a lake that did not exist in 1970 and is now kilometres long and hundreds of metres deep. Every hour spent on that ice starts with a helicopter.
The quoted three hours is not walking time. It covers check-in, gear, both flights and the walk. The time actually on the ice is closer to ninety minutes.
In winter the Hooker Valley freezes in the shade. DOC recommends microspikes and poles, and it is not being cautious — the flat sections are the slippery ones.
SH80 is the only road in. It is a 55-kilometre dead end up Lake Pukaki, and DOC warns that snow can close it. Check the highway before you commit to a booking.
Round out the trip
3 hours · ★ 4.8 (259)
$523View 12 hours · ★ 4.8 (566)
$152View 40 minutes · ★ 4.7 (22)
$351ViewGo deeper
Common questions
The Hooker Valley Track, and it is free. Ten kilometres return, about three hours, almost flat, over three swing bridges to a lake with icebergs floating in it under the highest mountain in New Zealand. If you only do one walk at Aoraki, do that one.
Five kilometres each way, so ten return. DOC gives the walking time as about 90 minutes one way, split into 15 minutes to the first swing bridge, 30 more to the second, and 45 from there to Hooker Lake. Allow three hours with stops.
Not on foot from the valley. The Tasman now ends in a lake that formed around 1990 and is kilometres long and hundreds of metres deep. The only way onto the ice is a guided heli hike, which lands at about 1,300 metres and walks roughly 2.5 km.
From $497 for three hours, of which about ninety minutes is walking on the ice. That includes both helicopter transfers, a guide, boots and crampons. A second operator runs a comparable trip at $523.
Yes. DOC publishes it as 2,200 steps and 600 metres of climb, and warns that the track is very steep and narrows near the top. It is half a day and it is the hardest thing most visitors here attempt. Above it, the Mueller Hut route needs mountaineering experience.
Not for the valley tracks — Hooker Valley, Kea Point, Tasman Glacier View and Sealy Tarns are all marked, free and walked unguided every day. You need a guide, and a helicopter, only to be on the glacier itself.
February to April: settled air for the flights, dry tracks, and the summer crowds gone. In winter DOC recommends microspikes and poles for the Hooker Valley because the shaded sections ice over, and snow can close SH80 altogether.
Free · no account needed
One PDF: which walk to do on which afternoon, when to book the flight, and what to do when SH80 is the problem rather than the weather. Built from DOC track data and the same live listings as this page.
The plan is on its way. If it isn't there in a minute, look in Promotions.
Why trust this page
Track distances, times and step counts are the Department of Conservation’s own published figures. Glacier lengths and lake dimensions come from published survey data. Prices and ratings are read off the live listings.
Every guided trip bookable at Aoraki is on the page, and so is every free walk that competes with it. Nobody pays to be featured.
Most sites in this niche will not tell you that the best walk in the park costs nothing. We lead with it, because a page that hides that is not worth reading.
The Tasman ends in a lake and there is no walk-on route. We say so rather than leave people to find out at the end of Tasman Valley Road.
The answer
Do the Hooker Valley Track on the afternoon you arrive, because it is free and it is the walk you will describe when you get home. Then book the heli hike at $497 for the first morning after — three hours, about ninety minutes on 23.5 kilometres of ice, and the only way to stand on a glacier that now ends in a lake.
Check dates and availability→ Free cancellation up to 24 hours · Reserve now, pay laterBefore you go
All six valley walks with real DOC times, the order to do them in so the light works for you, and when to book the flight.
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3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli Hike
★ 4.9 · 322 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h