One glacier, decided
A heli hike in New Zealand means one thing: a helicopter puts you on a glacier that has no walking route, and a guide walks you across it in crampons. The country has a handful of them and they are not equivalent. This page argues for the Tasman at Aoraki / Mount Cook on four measures — time on the ice, what the flight itself shows you, how much of the glacier is actually walkable, and what the reviews say.
Quick answer
The verdict. The Tasman Glacier heli hike at $497. About ninety minutes and two and a half kilometres on the longest glacier in the country, a flight in that passes the east face of the highest mountain in the country, and 322 reviews at 4.9. If it is full, the second operator on the same ice at $523 is not a downgrade.
The case for the Tasman
The longest ice, the best transfer, the deepest review history, and a free day to pair it with.
It is the longest glacier in the country. 23.5 kilometres, up to four wide, six hundred metres thick, covering about 101 square kilometres, with its head at three thousand metres. That is not a boast about size for its own sake — it means the walkable area up on the névé is genuinely large, and the route can be different from week to week without running out of glacier.
The flight in is the best transfer of any heli hike here. Five minutes up the Tasman valley with the east face of Aoraki out of one window. The highest mountain in New Zealand at 3,724 metres, seen from the side that most visitors never look at, because the road approaches from the other one.
The reviews are unusually deep. 322 at 4.9 on the top trip and 259 at 4.8 on the second. Between them nearly six hundred people have done this and rated it, which is a lot for a product that runs a handful of times a day out of a village of a few hundred beds.
It sits in a park where everything else is free. That sounds like an argument against, and it is actually the strongest argument for: you can walk the Hooker Valley in the afternoon for nothing, so the money you spend buys the one experience the park does not give away.
Book direct
Two out of the village, one from Queenstown with scenic flights at each end.
★ 4.9 · 322 reviews
★ 4.8 · 259 reviews
★ 4.3 · 10 reviews
Choosing between the three
All three walk the same glacier. What differs is where your day starts.
Three hours, about ninety minutes on the ice, and the deepest review history of any glacier walk in the country. This is the default and it is the right one.
Same glacier, own route, own guides, 259 reviews at 4.8. Twenty-six dollars more. Taking this on the morning you want beats taking the top pick on a worse afternoon slot.
Scenic flights over the Main Divide both ways with the hike in the middle. It removes eight hours of driving and two nights of beds, which is what the price actually covers. It also concentrates all your weather risk into one day.
Twenty-five minutes over the park with a landing on the snow. Less than half the price, no fitness required, and it shows you the shape of the whole thing in a way the hike cannot.
If you would rather see the glacier than walk on it, the landings are a different product.
Glacier and snow landings→What a heli hike in New Zealand is not
It is not mountaineering. No ropes, no climbing, no exposure. You walk on a prepared route in crampons behind a guide. The fitness required is roughly a rough hill track for ninety minutes.
It is not a longer scenic flight. The helicopter is transport. If what you want is the aerial view of the Southern Alps, a forty-five minute flight gives you far more of it for less money, because on the ice your horizon is about forty metres away.
It is not guaranteed to include an ice tunnel. Meltwater carves them in late summer and closes them again, and no operator controls that. What a guide can promise is knowing where this week’s features are. Anyone promising you a tunnel is selling something they do not own.
Common questions
The Tasman Glacier heli hike at Aoraki / Mount Cook, at $497. About ninety minutes on the longest glacier in the country, a transfer that passes the east face of Aoraki, and 322 reviews at 4.9 — the deepest review history of any glacier walk here.
A guided walk on a glacier that begins with a helicopter transfer, because the glacier has no safe walking route from the valley. Boots, crampons and a jacket are supplied, and the guide cuts and checks the route on the day.
Around $497 to $523 for a three-hour trip on the Tasman, and $995 for the version that starts and ends in Queenstown with scenic flights both ways.
No. There is no climbing and no rope work. You need to be steady on your feet for about ninety minutes on uneven ice, and crampons take about ten minutes to get used to.
Yes, and the reverse is also true — they show you almost completely different things. The flight gives you the shape of the glacier and the range around it; the hike gives you the texture, the crevasse walls and the meltwater features you cannot see from the air.
February to April. Late-summer melt opens the blue features on the ice and the air is at its most settled, which matters because a heli hike needs the weather to hold long enough for the machine to come back for you.
Go deeper
Six marked tracks from the village, with real DOC times and distances.
On the iceThe only walk on the longest glacier in New Zealand, and what the three hours contain.
The famous oneTen kilometres return, three swing bridges, a lake full of icebergs, and it is free.
The hard one2,200 steps and 600 metres of climb, and where the walking stops and mountaineering starts.
The free view300 steps to a viewpoint over a lake that did not exist in 1970.
PricesThree heli hikes priced against the flights and against the walks that cost nothing.
3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli Hike
★ 4.9 · 646 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h