Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2008
Franz Josef Glacier or 'Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere' in Māori (translated as 'the tears of Hinehukatere') is quite unique as glaciers go. Glaciers are essentially slow moving rivers of ice. They are formed by the accumulation of snow that fuses to form glacier ice under pressure from the layers of snow above it.
Franz Josef Glacier is unique because it is one of the few places in the world where a glacier descends into temperate rainforest - the contrast is staggering.
Having arrived at the small town of Franz Josef, there was no way that we weren't going to hike on this 12km long chunk of ice! We signed up for the full day tour and after collecting our equipment (jacket, gloves and crampons) we began our trek to the terminal face (leading edge) of the ice. A few unsteady steps and we soon got the hang of walking in crampons - they provide amazing grip on the ice and it wasn't long before we were running around up near vertical faces like Spiderman crossed with Sir Edmund Hillary!
We spent several hours on the glacier helping screw in ice screws for securing fixed ropes, digging steps and
venturing through crevasses and ice tunnels. It was great fun and already certain to be a definite highlight of New Zealand!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 10; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0575s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
