Ice is nice

Today began in the very tiny township of Franz Joseph. The closest thing to a bank here is a single ATM machine. We drove to Franz Joseph Glacier Guides this morning (a whopping one minute drive) in anticipation of our glacier walk. It took about half an hour to put on all of the glacier hiking gear, including woolen socks, boots, crampons (metal spikes that go on the boots), mittens, hats and rain jackets. We then got on a bus that recently won an award for least foot room ever (haha). It was a Japanese bus, but I guess it was the right price for the five minutes that it takes to get from the tour office to the glacier car park (parking lot, for you Americans).

Trekking to the glacier is quite a process - it begins with a short walk through the rainforest (read 15 minutes) and then a long walk across the moraine, which is fancy talk for all the rock deposited below the glacier from the mountains (read 45 minutes). Back in the 1800s, the glacier actually came all the way to where we were at the edge of the rainforest, but we had to hike through the moraine. Once we finally got to the glacier, we stopped to put on our crampons…all in order to go on another 20 minute hike uphill, finally on the glacier! It didn’t quite look like a glacier at this point, because the ice was all covered in rock.  The glacier literally carves rocks and boulders out of the mountain. As it melts, the dirt becomes exposed. At first, it makes the ice melt faster like wearing a black t-shirt in the sun. Eventually, it builds up enough to insulate the glacier, leaving this first part that we walked on today.

At last, we got to the part we were waiting for: the exposed ice. The guides go out early in the morning to cut steps and evaluate trails that day’s tours.

Franz Josef Glacier. The dark part you see to the left was caused in October 2011 by massive rockfall off of the mountain. Dust caused the ice to become discolored.

The glacier changes every day: melting, breaking off, shifting. In the past three months, a large portion of the glacier caved in. Only a small section is left to trek across, and it continues to deteriorate on a regular basis. In three days, the tour company will be discontinuing all hiking tours as they are worried this shelf will eventually cave in completely. Helicopter tours to hike at the top will still be available, but they will obviously be much more expensive. So continues the perfect timing of our trip.

Another view of the glacier. The stairs you see are what we climbed on – they are carved out by the guides each morning.

Our guide directed us through several narrow areas, including an eyelet which I basically had to crawl through. It was very cool. We also found a cave in the ice.

Us in ice cave. It was dripping water all over us!

It was a very fun day…and to think that they cancelled all tours except heli-hike tours after this Wednesday.

There were a lot of neat photo opportunities!

In total, we hiked for about 4½ hours and came back very hungry. We ate lunch and stopped by a coffee shop with free Wifi to update our GPS – we didn’t have a signal yesterday on the drive to Franz Josef. Upon checking email, we realized it was a software error that required a downloadable update. With our limited internet at the hotels, we couldn’t download it. Thankfully, we found a coffee shop that offered 30 minutes of free Wifi with a drink purchase. Cindy enjoyed a cappuccino while I updated the GPS, and it worked! Now we won’t get lost on our drive tomorrow.

Our glacier hike fee included access to the Glacier Hot Pools, which is pretty much just 3 really big hot tubs filled with lots of people. It was a nice way to relax at the end of the day, as we couldn’t handle any more hiking, although our guide did recommend a nice eight hour hike up the mountain. The glacier hike was our last planned tour in New Zealand. Tomorrow we drive back across the mountains to Christchurch to catch the ONLY free skymiles flight out of this country American Airlines could find.

Love, the George family

Happy Easter from Franz Josef Glacier!