Franz Josef Glacier

New Zealand has thousands of glaciers. What makes Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers so special is that they are 2 of the only 3 in the world to exist within rainforest. Under what would be considered less then ideal surroundings these glaciers due to their location in lattitude and along the Alpine Fault Line. The intersection of the eastern and western plates along this line pushes the gravel up and forms the New Zealand Southern Alps. As the windflow of the 'roaring forties' moves up the mountains it causes the clouds to drop huge amounts of rain and snow - creating a glacier. Becuase of these climate conditions and amount of ice turnover Franz Josef moves at a faster rate than the average glacier.

The Maori name for Franz Josef - Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere, means the Tears of the Avalanche girl

Legend has it that Hine, an adventurous Maori girl loved mountaineering fell in love with a young man. Her father dissapproved and in order to see each other she would bring him into the mountains. The young man was not a very good climber but was proud and on one such encounter slipped near the top and plummeted to his death. Hine's tears were so great in their volume that they were frozen by the gods as a memorial to her grief.

The hike started with a 20 minute bush walk which put us about 2km from the glacier. This put us at the terminal face of the glacier. Here you could actually see the rock and gravel being pushed up against by the ice. From here we had a steep rock climb to get up on to the glacier. We took a quick break to put on our ice talonz and take of some layers. It was a gorgeous crisp winter day with the sun warming us up in no time. The initial part of our walk was on fre-formed tracks, but even this wasn't so much of a 'cookie cutter' tour. Because of the speed at which the ice melts and its turnover our guide was constantly having to chop and hack at the ice to form new paths. At the first ice fall we stopped for a lunch break and some spectacular views. I know that I'm repeating myself and it seems like my vocabulary only consists of a few words but i really don't know the words if they exist to appropriately describe what the view looks like or how i felt at that moment. I guess if i had to sum it up in one word it would be 'Inconsequential'. Towering mountains, lush green rain forests, the vast Tasman Sea, all kept reminding me of how little i was and how insignificant we really are.

After lunch we got 'lost'. Or as Gavin, our guide liked to put it, we were going to 'explore' the ice fall. He had us chipping away and creating crevices barely a foot wide to slide through. At one point the plan was to slide between to walls of ice, the crack shaped like an elongated 'S' so you had to lean against one wall and use your hands to slide you forward (by now back packs had come off and were held in the other hand)... the crack began to lower and soon became a crack underneath us, about a foot wide, too deep to measure and about 3 feet long. 'We'll have to turn around right?' said one girl. Gavin just laughed - no we'll just scale the walls. So with our talonz on we scaled along the walls with a foot on both sides of the crack. I know that it must have been pretty safe or he wouldn't have allowed us, but it was pretty damn exhilerating pretending to be spiderman :)

By the time we had finished our climb I was a bit wet, definitely cold as the sun was beginning to set and my legs felt like they were made of jello. 'Aren't there any escalators on this glacier?' - guess not. Although the descent was a lot quicker my knees were screaming at me and my thighs refused to walk. Emma and I looked at each other and thought okay we're hungry, but we also want to soak in the sauna at the hostel but our legs won't move. Now you have to realize that Franz Josef is pretty much a one block town. on one side you have the hostel on the other the glacier tour office and some restaurants. So in order to minimize pain we decided to go straight to the bar (of course it would be up a flight of stairs) and eat. I guess everyone had the same idea because an hour after emma, cathil, david, martin and i got there (other folks on our hike) the place was rocking. It was fun, but i was still sore, ready for bed and in need of a shower. So we said goodbye to the folks of Franz Josef and head back to the hostel. Tomorrow it was another long bus ride, this time to Queenstown - extreme sports capital of the world. I was going to need all the rest I could get