[Field Notes] New Zealand: Chasing Snow and Icebergs

I didn't get lucky. I just kept coming back until the mountain gave me a few hours it almost never gives.

Before I even landed in New Zealand in 2022, I had one photo living in my head like a promise. Tasman Glacier, a frozen lake, icebergs sitting there like they were placed on purpose.

When it snows at ground level, it can melt just as fast, and when the sun breaks through it feels like the whole landscape starts changing in real time.

So I turned this into a chase. Three hours of driving, then two or three days waiting, then driving back, and doing it again, three or four attempts across a month, stubborn enough even when I had no control over the outcome.

The first time, it rained for three days when it was supposed to snow. It finally snowed overnight and I went to bed thinking, this is it.

Around 5 a.m. it switched back to rain and the snow vanished like it had never existed.

This morning the atmosphere was still amazing and I had a beautiful opening on Mt Sefton between the blue and golden hour. It was still worth it even if I didn't get the main image I wanted so bad. Beautiful things happen when we are not expecting them.

A few days ago, on a previous attempt, after a fresh snow on the mountain's top, I captured this image below, so powerful and moody in the area. To be honest, I was happy to get those conditions, otherwise I would never have gone to check other compositions. I captured this image at sunrise.

Few days later, I came back in the afternoon, when the wind was so strong it rocked my van side to side, the rain slamming into the doors hard enough to find a way in.

One weather app basically told me it would stay rain, and another showed a narrow snow window, 50/50, the kind of forecast that makes you argue with yourself. I was on Windy, the main app I use, because it lets you compare different forecast models and dig into the details. It used to overwhelm me, but I've learned how to use it over time, and that day it was still the same problem: the models were disagreeing, each one telling a slightly different story.

So I sat out there on the trail, in the rain, watching that light slide across the mountains and sink into the low clouds, while the wind got violent enough that they started closing bridges down in the valley. I was running on almost no sleep from the previous days, legs heavy from hiking, brain foggy in that cold, wet way that makes everything feel louder. And in that exhausted haze, the simplest question suddenly felt enormous: do I stay or do I go. Because the drive back to Wanaka in wind like that wouldn't just be uncomfortable. It could be dangerous with the van.

That's when Leanne messaged me, I think after seeing my Instagram story. I'd met her weeks earlier in Fiordland, after a falling snow, and it was one of those rare good-people moments you don't forget.

I invite you to take a look at Leanne's Instagram page if you want to see more images of New Zealand from her eyes.

She asked if I made it to Aoraki and if I was waiting for that shot I told her about, and I admitted I was unsure about the conditions. Then she told me it was snowing in Fiordland and that the snow might be coming toward Mount Cook. In that cold, with rain creeping in and doubt getting loud, her message felt like someone turning a light on in a room I'd started to accept as dark.

I opened the forecast again and watched the precipitation trajectory aiming right at the area, and I felt this clean, sudden joy, like, oh, that's happening. Now all I could do was cross my fingers that the temperature would stay below zero long enough for the snow to stick.

And then the van became its own little battle. Water started creeping in through weak cracks in the door seals, so I taped towels and cloth along the inside of the doors to absorb it, like makeshift barriers. Every thirty minutes I'd peel them off soaked, wring them out in the sink, then press them back where the leaks were still winning.

Over and over, while the air got colder, the space got wetter, and the van, minimal and uninsulated, turned into a cold, humid box with no heater. I'd had the reflex to put a waterproof layer on the mattress when I bought the van. It wasn't my first leak, but it was the first one in that exact spot, and I knew I'd have to wait for a full day without rain to swap the rubber and fix it properly.

That night, around midnight, the rain finally turned to snow. I barely slept, not because I could control anything, but because I couldn't stop checking, like the moment might disappear if I looked away. I was like a kid checking outside to see if Santa Claus was coming that night.

At 5:30 a.m. my bag was already packed and I drove in, the first car in the lot, fresh white everywhere. I started down the trail and realized I was making the first footprints of the morning, each step pressing into untouched snow. When the lake finally came into view, it looked more alive than ever, new ice spread across it, and the whole scene snapped into place like it had been waiting.

I took the photos I'd been dreaming of, but more importantly, I lived that moment, so unique. I stayed there longer than I needed, trying to let it sink in, even laughing at myself because I'd forgotten my gas canister and I'd been imagining making and drinking fresh coffee in that exact place, at that moment.

By around 11 a.m. the melt started, and by the afternoon the icebergs were all gone, the scene erased like a secret the mountain only told me once.

That's what the photo reminds me of now.

Not control, because there was none, but commitment, the choice to stay when it is uncomfortable, uncertain, and honestly a little ridiculous, and to keep my side of the promise until the world finally gives a window.

We can't control the weather, or the timing, or how long the scene will last.
We can only decide whether we'll stay close enough, long enough, to catch it when it finally happens.

I added a video below with timelapses and behind-the-scenes, so you can step into the morning with me.

And if this stirred something in you, leave a comment.

What's the most stubborn chase you've done for a photo?
What did it cost you, and what did it give you back?