The straight answer
The honest answer has two halves. You can walk up the Franz Josef Glacier valley on a free, signposted track that ends at a lookout facing the ice, and it takes about ninety minutes return. You cannot continue onto the glacier from there: the ice is reached by helicopter, and every listing that puts people on it starts with a flight. This page explains exactly how far the ground route goes, what you see from the end of it, what a guide changes, and what the flown version costs if you decide you want the ice.
Quick answer
The short answer. Yes, you can walk to the glacier — as far as the lookout, free, in about an hour and a half return. To walk on the ice you take a heli hike, from $455 on Fox Glacier and $514 on Franz Josef. A guided valley walk from $63 sits between the two.
How far the ground goes
The track ends at the lookout. The ice starts where the helicopter lands.
Start at the car park at the head of the valley. A graded track runs up the river flats between rainforest walls, gaining very little height, and ends at a lookout with the glacier in front of you. That is the ground route, and it is free.
From the lookout you are looking up the valley at the end of the ice. What you see is the terminal face, the river that runs out from under it, and the walls the glacier cut when it stood further down the valley than it does now. On a clear day the Southern Alps stand behind it; in rain the cloud sits in the valley and the waterfalls on both walls run hard, which the operators describe as the atmospheric version rather than a wasted trip.
Past the lookout the valley floor belongs to the glacier and its river, and the route onto the ice is the helicopter. This is why the two kinds of listing read so differently: the walking trips talk about the valley, the rainforest and the lookout, and the heli hikes talk about landing on the glacier and being fitted with crampons.
At the end of the track
All of it from the valley walk listings and the ground itself — no drone shots, no promises about the weather.
The end of the glacier, high in the valley, with the meltwater river running out from beneath it. The scale takes a moment to read because there is nothing human-sized next to it to measure against.
Bare rock high up, rainforest lower down, and a clear line between them where the ice used to sit. It is the most legible thing in the whole landscape once somebody points it out, which is exactly what the guided walks do.
Both walls carry them, and they run hardest in the wet. This coast is one of the wetter places in New Zealand and the walk goes ahead in rain.
The Franz Josef valley walk runs through ancient podocarp forest along a glacial-fed river. Temperate rainforest growing this close to glacier ice is rare enough to be part of why the park carries UNESCO World Heritage status.
The Fox Glacier valley walk is the one that gives you views of Fox Glacier and Mount Tasman together, and it is the more reviewed of the two guided walks with 188 reviews at 4.7.
You will hear and see them from the track. They are running the ice walks, five minutes up the valley, and watching one land is what makes most people book the other kind of day.
Alone or with a guide
The marked track needs no guide. It is signposted, graded and walked every day of the year by people who arrived with no plan beyond parking the car. So the fair question is what the guided walks give you for $63.
Off the main track. The Franz Josef Glacier Lookout Guided Walk describes off-track sections through the rainforest and a one-guide-to-ten-guest ratio, which is what makes leaving the formed track possible at all. That is the clearest difference between the two ways of doing the same valley.
Somebody who reads the landscape. Both guided walks are run by Glacier Valley Eco Tours, and the listings are specific: geology, glaciation, local flora and fauna, and the hidden corners of the valley. There is also a break with tea, coffee and hot chocolate, which sounds minor until you have stood in West Coast rain for two hours.
The Fox valley without your own car. The Fox Glacier walk includes the thirty-minute drive from Franz Josef township and back. If you are on a bus itinerary, that is the only practical way to walk the second valley.
What neither guided walk does is take you onto the ice. Both stay in the valley, and both say so.
Decided you want the ice rather than the view of it? The two days compared, honestly.
Valley walk or heli hike?→If you want the ice
Three listings put people on the ice, and they differ mostly in how long you stand on it.
Fox Glacier, $455, four hours. A flight over the icefalls, a landing in a remote part of the glacier, and up to three hours hiking past ice caves and arches on steps cut by the guide. 363 reviews at 4.9 — the highest rating of any trip on this site.
Franz Josef, $514, four hours. Gear fitting and a safety briefing in the township, a short walk to the helipad, a flight over rainforest and ridges, then 2.5 hours on the ice among blue ice caves and crevasses. 399 reviews at 4.8, the most reviewed trip here, and the listing currently carries a likely-to-sell-out flag.
The long version, $886, eight hours. Up to 5.5 hours on the ice in a small group with a glacier picnic lunch. It is the most time anyone here spends on the glacier in a day.
All three supply the gear and fit crampons when you land. All three depend on the weather, which is why the morning slots are the ones to take: book the first morning of your stay and you keep the rest of the trip as your second chance.
Book direct
Two guided walks in the valleys, and the two standard ways onto the ice. Live listing prices and ratings.
★ 4.7 · 188 reviews
★ 4.8 · 169 reviews
★ 4.9 · 363 reviews
★ 4.8 · 399 reviews
Common questions
Yes. A free, marked track runs up the valley from the car park to a lookout facing the ice, and it takes about ninety minutes return at a normal pace. It needs no booking, no permit and no guide.
Walking on the ice is done with a helicopter transfer, which lands you in a part of the glacier that has no ground route. Crampons are fitted when you arrive. Trips run $514 on Franz Josef and $455 on Fox Glacier.
The valley track to the lookout, yes — it is signposted and walked unguided every day. The ice is guided only, on every listing: the guide cuts the steps and the route changes week to week as the glacier moves.
About ninety minutes return on the free valley track, with very little climbing. The guided walk in the same valley is a three-hour trip, and the Fox Glacier guided walk runs three and a half hours including the thirty-minute drive each way.
Yes, and it is the same arrangement: a valley track to a lookout, with the ice reached by helicopter. The guided Fox valley walk is $63 for three and a half hours and includes the drive from Franz Josef, and it is the most reviewed walk on this site at 188 reviews and 4.7.
It depends what you want from the morning. The free track gives you the lookout. The guided walk adds off-track rainforest sections at a one-to-ten ratio, commentary on the geology and wildlife, a hot drink, and the drive if you are doing the Fox valley. Both stay in the valley; only the flown trips reach the ice.
The valley walks go ahead in rain — the Franz Josef listing describes the valley as atmospheric in misty rain, and the waterfalls run hardest then. Flights are the part that waits for a window, which is why the ice walks are worth booking for a morning early in your stay.
Go deeper
When to walk the Franz Josef and Fox Glacier valleys — seasons, rain, daylight and the hours that give the clearest view up the valley.
Fox Glacier walksWalking at Fox Glacier — the valley track through rainforest, the viewpoints, Lake Matheson, and the guided half-day at $63 with transfers from Franz Josef.
Hiking without a helicopterWhat you can hike at Franz Josef and Fox on the ground: guided valley walks from $63, what a guide adds, and where the walking ends and the ice begins.
Every walk at Franz JosefEvery Franz Josef Glacier walk compared — the free valley track to the lookout, guided walks from $63, and the heli hikes onto the ice from $455.
Free and self-guidedFranz Josef Glacier walk free: which valley tracks cost nothing, what the guided walks at $63 add on top, and when each one is the right call.
Getting hereWhere Franz Josef and Fox Glacier sit, where tours meet you, and why two nights beats one — planned around the weather.
Half-Day Walking & Nature Tour with Local Guide
★ 4.7 · 188 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h