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Published: August 6th 2007
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The Glacier Experience
Kel Gets Sick Again It’s amazing that Kel’s sickness is traveling at the exact same pace as my sickness did in Asia. After a day of feeling better Kel decided to push it a bit and eat “real” food. When we went out for dinner on Wednesday night Kel had a really nice braised lamb dish that seemed fairly innocuous at the time.
Unfortunately about two hours later Kel was in the process of getting sick again…and again. By time she went to sleep that night she had visited the restroom almost ten times and had taken a full days dose of Immodium. Thankfully Kel was able to sleep the whole night without getting sick again but she was completely drained when she woke up on Thursday morning.
Since she was afraid that she would get sick again during the day we both felt that it would be better for Kel not to go on the Heli-hike of the glacier. Kel remained behind for the morning and got some chicken soup. After a nap in the morning and some softer food she was feeling much better.
Check Out the Blue Ice
I went alone to the Heli-hike place and checked in at quarter to nine. It felt pretty weird to be doing something cool without Kel but we really both felt this was the right way to go. After check in, our group was split into 4 helicopter groups for the ride up to the glacier. I was lucky and was placed on the first helicopter so that I didn’t have to wait around very long before heading out.
We had been outfitted with boots, wool socks, a bag of ice claws and a nice waterproof coat before heading out on the helicopter. We weren’t able to put the ice claws on our boots until we got to the glacier so when we jumped into the helicopter it was just me and my camera.
I got the front seat which was nice because I was a little afraid of the helicopter ride. The only other time in my life that I had ridden in a helicopter had occurred when I was about 12 and my parents and I had done a helicopter tour of the waterfalls in Hawaii. I had gotten a little nauseous on that
trip because helicopters can do things that airplanes can’t, like rotate on their vertical access while standing still. I had no real problems with the ride up the glacier despite some steep banking the helicopter did as it approached the mountains a few times. It was wild that I felt like we were only a few feet over the ice as we approached but I was completely wrong. As we approached the landing site we could see the guides waiting for us and they were absolutely tiny from the height we were flying. The glacier is so large that you lose perspective of size and height until you get a point of reference.
After we landed we had to wait for the other three helicopter loads to arrive. We stood around and got to know each other a little bit. In my group, the first group of hikers/first two helicopter loads of people, there were a mother and daughter from England, a couple from the UK, a couple from Australia, a couple from Japan and one guy traveling the world alone from London. Once everyone arrived we took fifteen minutes putting on our ice claws before setting out to
see the glacier.
Ice Caves and Swimming Pools The first thing we all had to learn was how to use the ice claws on our feet. It turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. With close to forty spikes on each shoe all you had to do was walk like normal and the spikes did the rest keeping each of us from falling on our behinds.
We got a chance to walk/crawl through a couple of ice caves that are pure blue to the eye. The first one was pretty decent sized and not too difficult to negotiate but that would change. The second cave involved each of us crawling on all fours through a really low and slick cave. I lost my footing inside and slid about three feet through the cave. Oops! Other than a wet behind I was perfectly fine.
From the surface the ice is mostly white but you catch a glimpse here or there of a depth that is blue. Once you go through an ice cave you really get to see how the light from the surface refracts making the ice glow with a
light cool blue. The color is very similar to a blue, blue Caribbean ocean. Its really quite breathtaking.
Hiking through the ice turns out to be pretty tiring. The guide would stop every once in a while to use a pick to cut something like steps for us to walk on. These step carving stops gave us some needed rest. I was actually pretty glad that Kel hadn’t come on the hike because I think she would have been pretty uncomfortable with some of the hiking. She is very capable of doing just about anything but she gets nervous and doesn’t have a good time if she doesn’t feel comfortable. I think she would have been pretty uncomfortable crawling through the ice caves and walking through some of the ice fields.
As we were finishing up with our hike we came to a decent sized water pool that had formed between some small ice hills. Our guide told us that sometimes people went swimming in the pool when the weather was nice. After some cajoling, the guide managed to talk one of our group into stripping off his coat and shirt for a quick dip in the pool.
Climbing through an Ice Cave
We had to crawl on hands and knees to get through this one! I was amazed that anyone would be dumb enough to jump in when it was only a few degrees above freezing. As soon as his head came out of the water he screamed that it was cold. HAHAHA! The guide later told me that he gets one person in just about every group to jump in the pool. His only comment, “It’s completely stupid but really funny for me.”
As we were waiting for the helicopters to come back and get us I finally did something stupid. While talking to one of the couples I took a step back and stepped ankle deep into a pure blue puddle of melted ice. Thankfully I had waited until we were leaving to freeze my right foot off but it was pretty uncomfortable none the less.
Before we left the guide gave us a run down on some of the facts of the Franz Joseph glacier and some interesting tidbits about glaciers in general. A glacier is defined as any place where there is more snow fall than melting. In New Zealand alone there are over 3000 glaciers but most of them are really small. The Franz Joseph glacier is one
of only two glaciers in the world that have vegetation growing near it. This is due to the fact that most glaciers are formed at a very high elevation while the Franz Joseph glacier is at a much lower elevation. The glacier was named for the emperor Franz Joseph because the Austrian explorer, Haast, who found it thought it looked like Franz Joseph’s long white beard. The Brits tried to change its name to the Queen Elizabeth glacier but the name had already stuck so it kept its Austrian name.
Napping…Sweet, Sweet Napping After the return trip down the glacier I went back to our room and grabbed Kel for some lunch. I was completely exhausted at this point due to the fact I hadn’t eaten much and hadn’t slept very well. We grabbed a sandwich for me and some dry cooked pasta for Kel and then returned to our room. I napped most of the afternoon and really enjoyed the opportunity to just rest without any other plan for the day.
The rest of the day involved resting, napping, watching TV and getting some dinner. Tomorrow we will continue to head south on our way
to Queenstown. Hope you are all well back home!
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