That One Time, When I Climbed a Glacier

Good news! This coming week is the last week of classes. That means that will have nothing to do other than study and hang out and write in my blog. So I give you permission to bother me about writing another entry. Now onto Franz Josef.

Franz Josef

A tour of Franz Josef Glacier in 1906


When we arrived in Franz Josef, we stopped at the Franz Josef Glacier Guide place. They showed us a video about the options and what we'd need for the next day. I double checked that I could do the hike with my back. They told me that it might be a bit tough for me since there were some tight spaces and low caves, but that we should be able to figure it out. I felt up to the challenge.

That evening we unpacked at our hostel, made dinner, enjoyed the giant hot tub (the size of a small pool), got ready and went into the bar by the hostel. It was a very nice bar, with a nice, chill atmosphere. We had a great evening and met people from the Kiwi Experience bus (another tour company) and some locals. The next morning, we woke up and got ready for our glacier hike. In New Zealand, one says gla-see-ur, rather than glay-sure like we do in the States.

We walked over to the place and it was unfortunately pissing (pouring) down with rain. We were trying to bet if the hike would be canceled. Luckily it wasn't. I wore many layers in order to stay warm: a tank top, polypro long underwear, my really warm knit sweater (from Gap, you know, before they changed their logo) and a raincoat of my own. They supplied us with a waterproof overcoat. On my legs I wore Matt's rainbow polypro pants and the waterproof overpants supplied to us. They also gve us wool socks, gloves and a hat. Unfortunately, I accidentally left my gloves at the place, so I didn't have them for my hike. At first my hands were freezing, but they generally got used to the cold/went numb so it was okay. The worst part for my hands was when we'd have to hold onto a rope and I'd be gripping the soaking wet rope cord.

The hike was a really amazing, once in a lifetime experience. We took a bus up to the carpark (parking lot) closest to the glacier. Believe it or not, but we had to walk through a rain forest to get to the glacier! New Zealand really is an incredible place. Once we were at the rocky ground in front of the glacier, they split us up into two groups: one that was more confident and wanted a more challenging hike and one that wanted a bit more leisure and perhaps some help. I knew that it would be best for me to go with the second group so I made sure to split myself off, regardless of what the rest of my friends were going to do. Luckily, four other girls joined me. Our guide was named Jack and was extremely handsome. EXTREMELY. Don't believe me? Below is a picture of myself, my four friends and beautiful Jack:


He taught us a bit about the Franz Josef glacier and its history. Over the years it has retreated and advanced, it seems unrelated to global warming. The night before, it snowed the most in three years. IT was the first time our guide had ever seen so much snow in his career at the company.


We climbed the part of the glacier that didn't have ice on it. That part was horrible because it was straight uphill. Once we got part to the snow and ice, it was time to put our crampons. We kept them on our bum bugs. They are called bum bags, NOT fanny packs because a fanny in New Zealand is well, a body part you just don't talk about with just anybody. Crampons are little spiky attachments to our shoes. They help your feet not to slide around on the ice and snow. They took a bit of getting used to to walk with, but it was quite easy once I got the hang of it. It was really important that we lifted our feet up straight and put them down facing forward so we wouldn't twist an ankle. Below is a view from the glacier looking down.

The climbing experience was really neat. There were steps carved out of the ice. Often times they needed to be re-carved a bit, which is where Phyllis, the guide's ice pick (see group picture above) came in. He would fix the steps or make new ones. We went through an iris, which is a wall of ice that's being separated, but essentially doesn't want to be yet. You can't quite tell in the picture below, but the ice is actually blue. There's nothing in it that's causing it to be blue, but rather its so dense that the ice just looks blue. Normal ice is 7% denser than water, but blue ice is around 97% denser than water.
This iris was one of the wider ones we went through. The walls were often so close together you'd have to actually face them, suck in and scrape by. I'm not a very claustrophobic person, but when your pinned up between two walls of ice and are exhausted, but have no room to breathe (pretty much literally) until you get yourself out of there, it kind of freaks you out.

Overall, the hike was an enjoyable, but challenging experience. We carved out a spot in some snow for our bums while we ate our sandwich. We had plenty of snowball fights against the other groups. Six hours later, we were tired and on the bus back into town.

That evening we had tim tam slams (which I will explain in my Kiwi Vocab chapter) and went back to Monsoon bar. It was an interesting night.

Onwards
The next morning, we woke up and were absolutely freezing. The space heater was off and we couldn't figure out why. Then, our phones didn't have any reception. We were quite confused. We hadn't had reception for much of our trip, but I had been texting Matt the night before so I know I had had service at one point. Soon enough, we found out there had been a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch. It was the same magnitude as the one that killed thousands in Haiti earlier this year.

We got ready to go to the next place, but first we had to check out. I saw the ice cream freezer by the reception desk and I said to the woman, "So if the power is out... the ice cream is going to melt anyway, right? Would I possibly be able to get one?" She said that she really couldn't because they didn't know when the power was going to come back on and that it wasn't a good idea because of stock checks. She also said, "What do you want it for anyway? It's the morning." I looked at her, and said to her (in retrospect it was a very pathetic voice) "for breakfast..." She gave in and I had a delicious hokey pokey ice cream bar. It was awesome.

Well it's 1 a.m. here and I'm tired. I'll continue this soon hopefully. We're finally getting to the end of my South Island trip. Guten Nacht!