Today we awoke to a perfect day for our hike on Fox Glacier. Fox is one of the world's few advancing glaciers, and although not as big as many of the glaciers we saw in Alaska, it's so close to the rainforest to be truly amazing. We hiked up along the side of the valley, in places holding on to chains where the drop was steep. After an hour or so hiking we got to the glacier itself where we strapped on our crampon boots and hiked up the ice. Our guide cut steps into the ice for us with a large ax, and made sure we all had a safe trip. Walking on the ice was really cool, it was something we never did in Alaska, so now our glacier education is complete. After lunch, we took a drive to a fairly secluded beach, and spent some quality time doing not much of anything - swimming, walking, napping and tanning. A perfect way to spend the afternoon. Later, several of us took a helicopter flight up and around the glaciers, and landed high up on Fox Glacier. A snowball fight ensued, and let's just say it wasn't pretty. Chris made a valiant effort , but .... In the morning we had a very nice early hike around Lake Matheson. Beautiful reflections with the morning mist rising off the lake made the early wakeup call worth it.