Walking on ice

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- FOOD: Lunch sitting on the glacier. Another headlit dinner in a car park.

- AREA: Walking (or rather mountaineering) the astounding Franz Josef glacier, squeezing through it's narrow blue caves and jumping crevaces.

- PEOPLE: Mountaineering guides who knew what they were doing. Slow (and scared) people in our group.

- WEATHER: Blue sky shining on this mass of ice.


Sun 14th Aug: Franz Josef glacier is truly amazing. It's Maori name is Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere which means 'Tears of the Avalanche Girl'. Such an enchanting name coming from the girl who lost her lover whilst climbing and was so heartbroken she cried so hard that her tears froze into the glacier.
We got kitted up, crampons and all, for our three quarter day walk on it - something I was very much looking forward to after not having time in Argentina. We had to walk 40 minutes across the old lake where the glacier used to be to reach the start (end) of it. Even though the glacier is always advancing (1 metre a day), it has the effect of retreating if the ice melts faster than the advancing ice.

It looked so beautiful and powerful as we walked the 5k to reach it but it was only when on it that we realised it's full power. We had to climb up and down very narrow steps cut into the ice, across crevaces, through blue caves which are about the same width as me - all without falling or stepping in the puddles which would plummet you down very deep into icy water. Our group were a bit on the slow side but I stopped complaining when we reached a section that could only be climbed by people 5 foot 8 or over.

One leg was on one side of the wall of ice and the other stretched out in the splits spiked into the opposite wall with a deep crevace between the legs (looking down wasn't great). The idea was to climb up the wall like this - pushing your weight from side to side to get momentum. Ummm - don't think so. He realised some of us were just too short and told us to jump across it! A mixture of this, pushing off the side and grabbing his pole with dear life had the desired effect. Phew, my idea of a nice leisurely stroll on the ice was replaced with the reality of the mountaineering we were doing. It was really good fun though and I enjoyed it lots.
On our return to the bus there were 2 keas sitting on top (a NZ bird like a parrot - green with red underwings). They were tame and came close to us - even closer when they thought food was available for them!

After a bit of food in the classy atmosphere of the car park, we just about had enough energy left to drive to Wanaka where we were gobsmacked and pleased to see that food places and bars were still open at the late hour of midnight... have we reached more human life at last?

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