So, Friday the 13th was upon us, and as likely as it sounds that something bad was about to happen to us, it turns out that the exact opposite did. Jackie, Morgan and I along with the rest of our Kiwi Ex "family" - Judith, Martin and Phil - headed to Franz Josef Glacier Guides to begin the hike up Franz Josef Glacier.
Martin and Morgan originally were booked in to do ice climbing, however the lovely West Coast climate decided to not allow that and the extremely rainy and "moist" conditions forced the ice climbing trip to be cancelled.
Anyways, we geared up in rain pants, jackets, wool socks, boots, gloves, toques and given crampons for the hike - hopped on the bus and we were off to the glacier. The hike started off (in pouring rain) with a quick 45 minutes through the valley and up large rocky hill to the base of the glacier. Soaked already, there we stopped to attach the crampons onto our boots and got a quick lesson from our guide - Michael "Rookie" Rook - about how to walk with crampons on, without tripping or catching the spikes on your legs.
There were several groups ahead of us on the hike - and the guides of those groups had cut stairs in the glacier to allow everyone to get up. As we walked, Rookie would use his pick axe to fix any stairs if need be. It was quite surreal to be hiking up the glacier, and even though the pouring rain soaked us right through, it made the whole experience even that much more extreme. Huge waterfalls poured from the mountain cliffs on either side of the glacier, which would not have been there if it had been clear. The glacier looked so mysterious with the clouds hanging so thickly near the peak, and it felt more dangerous being up there in such conditions.
Glaciers are basically flowing rivers of ice, so as we ascended we could see the ice flow pattern appeared to break apart as it flowed over cliffs around 60 m below the glacier. Franz Josef Glacier moves up to 5 meters per day, so each day the track could be very different than the day before. On either side of the glacier, we saw the remains of several rock falls from the cliffs, and our guide told us that they now guide up the middle of the glacier to avoid possible rock falls. On the way up we saw some rocks fall off the cliff to our right. Extreme!
Eventually we made it to the top of the glacier, devoured some lunch we had packed and explored a bit on the top. We saw some ice falls near the top, which looked like frozen water falls, and we took some pictures. The way down was a lot easier than the way up, and as we descended we stamped our feet into the ice with our crampons to avoid slipping. It was so much easier to enjoy the views on the way down - waves of brilliant white and blue ice flow down the glacier, appearing almost like a river frozen in time. Pretty neat that's for sure!
At the bottom we removed our crampons, hiked back to the bus, dropped our gear off at Franz Josef Glacier Guides and headed to the Glacier Hot Pools to heat up! It sure was nice to sit in the warm water, heat our muscles back up and relax. We ended the day with supper at the Monsoon Pub at our hostel, where I ate my first meal of bangers and mash in history. Bloody delicious if you ask me!
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