Day 21 - Ice Climbing at Franz Josef Glacier

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Phils Day...

Today I went Ice Climbing on the Franz Josef Glacier. The day started at 7.45am where we met our 2 glacier guides and 7 more participants (8 including myself). We headed off up the Franz Josef valley in a rickety old van which had a fragant smell of probably hundreds of other peoples sweat. nice. We parked and started walking up the valley until we met the glacier's terminal face, the lowest in the world at 280m above sea level. The glacier itself is dirty with grit and strewn with rocks and boulders; around are huge cliffs and mountains with waterfalls crahing down - and to make things even more spectacular its sunny with just a few clouds. sunshine at last!

We fitted out crampons and climbed our way onto the glacier via cut steps and hand rails. If you don't use the hand rails then you'll be taken off the glacier - and we were also told

Not to f*ck around with our cameras

- harsh rules for a harsh environment! We worked our way past crevasses and through ice caves working our way higher onto the glacier. As we past the terminal face of the glacier the ice became blue.

After a brief demonstration on how to ice climb, it was our turn. Fortunately i've ice-climbed before so I got stuck straight into it and did two 15m climbs relatively easily after a couple of minutes of recap. The rest of the group did as you'd expect for first timers I guess - some stumbling around, feet falling of the ice wall as they dangled clutching onto their ice axes. We then moved onto the our second ice wall - approx 20m high, the first 15m vertical and the final 5m overhanging. This was much more fun and a more demanding; only a couple of us made it to the top!

We had a friendly group of participants and we had a good laugh.

Shelleys Day...

I knew I'd find the Ice Climbing day too hard so opted for something a bit easier! Instead I did a four our walk through the rainforest by myself and went to see the Franz Josef Glacier. I got very wet!

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Photos

Ice Climbing
Phil reaching the top of the 2nd ice wall.