21DEC2019 – DAY 8: THE FALSE REGRET

I woke up this morning excited to go hiking around the top of a glacier as one the highly-anticipated activities on my list. Unfortunately, I woke up quite a bit earlier than everyone else and so I meandered around town biding my time until I ran into someone from our tour group. It took a while, but I eventually meandered my way to a few fellow tour members. We talked briefly about what our plans and activities were for the day before continuing back on out own paths. I grabbed a bagel from the breakfast area just before it closed to finish off the slow start to the morning. Check-in for the heli-hike began at 11:15AM and took over 45 minutes due to “technical difficulties”. After everything was sorted out, 10 of us from the group were led out to the helipad and waited for the first helicopter to bring us up the glacier. The first group of us (carefully) boarded the helicopter and began making the climb. The part of the Franz Josef Glacier we would be hiking on was noted as being only 700m above sea level, which is relatively low. The views from the helicopter ride up were amazing! As we approached the helipad on the glacier, the helicopter made a rather large dip due to a pocket of turbulence. I didn’t mind, but some of the other passengers were a bit more concerned. After exiting the helicopter (carefully again), we put crampons on our boots and grabbed a hiking pole. Once the other half of our heli-hike group made it up, we started on our way with a very experienced glacier guide. After making quick progress on the path already scoped out for us, our guide deemed us competent enough to go off-tracking. We made our way across less planned paths occasionally needing to be created by the guide using their axe. We were soon brought to a crevasse which we were given the option to descend, walk a few steps, and then climb out. What kind of person would turn down such an experience? One by one, we each made our way through the crevasse which was a lot narrower once inside than it looked from above. After making my way out and standing firmly back on solid ice, I went to put my phone back into the provided pouch when it fell. I remember watching as it slid down approximately 10m into the crevasse. I went to see if I could get a glimpse of my phone at the bottom when I was told to stay away from the edge. The remainder of the hike was significantly less meaningful for me after having dropped my phone in a glacier. Fortunately, the friends I had made helped me turn this unfortunate circumstance into a more interesting story than I would have had otherwise. Everyone kept mentioning that if you are going to lose your phone on a trip, there’s hardly a better way to do so than how I just did. As the hike came to what was supposed to have been its end, we were told that the helicopters couldn’t make their way up due to the cloud cover being above the maximum allowance for flying safely. The glacier guides notified on the contingencies in place in the event the helicopters couldn’t make it up. We were brought around for a little more hiking time on the glacier and eventually made our way back to the helipad at the base camp where we waited for the clouds to disperse enough for the return trip back down. All the groups that had gone up were safely returned without having to stay overnight on the glacier. In a way I was relieved, but I was also kind of hoping the insane experience up there could have been made even more so for an even crazier story. Once back on solid ground (and not ice), I made my way to the hot pools for a long relaxing soak. At the pools, I found quite a few of the other tour group members who weren’t on the heli-hike already enjoying the heated pools. As I joined them and explained all that had occurred that day, I felt a wash of relief come over myself. What I had been viewing as a massive regret of having lost my only connection to the world outside the paradise I had been visiting was now seen as an opportunity to enjoy this vacation for all it had to offer untethered by the need for technology. The freedom from technological dependency was a major turning point for how the remainder of the trip would turn out. We left the hot pools for dinner at 6:00PM at a Chinese restaurant in town where I ordered something new: Cashew Chicken. I ate the chicken and cashews picked from around all of the various vegetables that also came with the meal. I had ordered 2 amaretto sour cocktails which at the time I was not aware was different from the shots of amaretto I had become accustomed to enjoying. This new drink wasn’t at all what I expected, but I made due as they weren’t as bad tasting as they initially appeared. After dinner, I went back to the hotel room and was invited to sit down with a larger group and have some “pink drink” (or so I called it), a vodka/sprite mix made by one of our group members in preparation for the night out. I had a glass of “pink drink”, but instead of sitting with the group, I convinced them to toss around a frisbee with me. After some close calls of the frisbee almost knocking glass bottles off the table, we made our way to the bar for more drinks and after-dark shenanigans. The night went on for a long time and I ended up turning in for bed around 2:30AM. I am glad I was able to change the way I viewed losing my phone from being a haunting regret to an opportunity that would allow me to further appreciate everything I saw and did from that point on. It wouldn’t have felt right to have such a regret on a trip branded as #noregrets!