Franz Josef Glacier
On to happier things now that the last post has been taken care of. Let’s see…right, Franz Josef Glacier. Now, this was pretty cool. With glaciers disappearing at the rate that they are worldwide, being able to hike across one is a pretty rare opportunity. Who knows, they might all be gone in a hundred years or so. We checked into a place that was half mountain lodge and half vacation hotel just outside of “town.” Kind of like Tongariro National Park, the village around Franz Josef pretty much consisted of a general store, a restaurant or two, a souvenir shop, and a string of hotels. They did have a wildlife preserve shelter not too far from our place that claimed to have “the world’s rarest kiwi bird” inside, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to go see it. Shame. I’m sure that there will be similar opportunities later on, but I would have liked to have stopped in to see it first hand.
The hotel that we stayed in had an area reserved for backpackers and was very nice to look at on the outside, but it had a few things wrong with it inside, namely the showers. We found out the hard way that they had practically no water pressure and that at least one shower was unusable due to cockroaches, but the beds, at least, were alright, and the people there were nice and helpful. We dropped our stuff off there and settled in for the night after deciding which packages to buy for the next day. There was also the option for a heli-hike, in which a helicopter flies you up over the glacier and lands on the top for about an hour of walking around. That sounded cool but was super expensive. Then there was the more extreme ice climbing with people virtually crawling up the side of the glacier with ice picks and rope. Also very expensive. I decided to take the middle, more reasonable option that involved an all-day hike up the glacier with a guide. That was still a bit pricey, but it was more in my ballpark estimate than the other options. So we went to bed, got as much sleep as we could, and then got up early the next morning to do the big hike.
We had to meet over at the activity center to sign in and get all of our gear. The day before, they had showed us a safety DVD that had kind of freaked us out because they made it sound ten times more dangerous than bungy jumping and sky diving combined. They kept emphasizing things like falling, avalanches, hypothermia, dehydration, and the like while making sure that we knew all of the risks listed on the waiver form. Then they specifically mentioned that we couldn’t wear jeans because apparently they itch and retain water if they wet, which sucked because all I had by way of pants was jeans. I just don’t own shorts or anything else. So I had searched everywhere the night before for a pair of light-weight, inexpensive pants and found absolutely nothing. I finally ended up wearing my pajama sweatpants underneath the waterproof pants they give you, and that worked out fine.
After all of that talk about possible injury or death, I was actually a little worried about the hike in a way that I hadn’t been for other “adventure” sports. I was thinking of those spikes on the bottom of our clamp-ons and how easy it would be to fall and impale your other leg with one. Turns out that they’re totally paranoid, though. It was about as dangerous and exhausting as walking down the street to get the mail. I don’t know why they built it up like that because I was prepared for another Tongariro when I got the bunny hills version. Oh well. Long story short: they loaded us up with all of our gear and made sure we had enough food for lunch later on. They gave us over-pants, a large blue jacket, gloves, boots, a beanie, and sunglasses for the trek, so we all looked pretty much the same. As always, I brought way too much stuff with me, so my backpack was uncomfortably heavy all day, especially after the sun came out and I started stripping off layers.
They put all of us in a bus and drove us out to the trail head after a few more orientation notes. Anyone can hike out to the start of the glacier if they want to for free, but they don’t allow anyone past a certain point without a guide because I guess there have been accidents. First, they led us through a little forest path for about twenty minutes, so we got to enjoy the foliage and the last bit of flat ground for a while. That eventually opened up into a large valley of rocks and riverbeds with the glacier off in the distance. Looking at it, it didn’t seem all that far away or especially large, but our guide informed us that it was an optical illusion and that it would actually take thirty minutes to reach the base of it. We also had to start thinking about our confidence level and just how in shape we were because we were supposed to separate out into groups ranked by difficulty. The most fit, experienced hikers were instructed to join groups 1 or 2, and the ones who wanted a completely easy hike were told to join groups 5 or 6. Anyone unsure or somewhere in-between was supposed to go into groups 3 and 4. Since I didn’t want to kill myself but wasn’t a complete wuss either, I ended up in Group 4. Looking back on it, though, I could have easily gone with 1 or 2 and been just fine. It really wasn’t all that challenging, but most of my friends were in 4 as well, so that was nice.
The base and waterfalls, as seen from the edge of the trees
We set off towards the base, taking photos as we went, and I ended up hanging with Mirva, a Dutch girl I had met the day before. We had a similar pace, so I ended up staying near her for the majority of the day. We separated off into our designated groups and continued along the river at a brisk walk. Our guide…I want to say “Dan,” but I’m not sure it that’s right, explained that the coloring of the glacier can tell a few things about it. The bluer the ice is, for example, the colder and denser it is. And there was one particular section that was completely covered with brown dust, kind of like a giant dirty snowball. Dan informed us that that was left over from the big Australian dust storms a few years ago that came across to New Zealand. So scientists and observant people can figure out a lot of things that have happened in the world by looking at glaciers.
Notice the difference in color?
Along the way, we encountered several amazing waterfalls and a few passing mountain goats. Apparently the crack that goes down the side of the mountain goes all the way under the valley and comes up the other side, going as deep as the canyon is wide. So I imagine that somewhere way down beneath the rock we were standing on, there must be a really cool depository of waterfall runoffs underneath the glacier. Hmm. So we finally got up to the actual glacier and started climbing up the rocks. That part was pretty easy, but it wasn’t long before we hit the ice, which required clamp-ons on our boots, otherwise we would fall right off the glacier. It was a little awkward at first because we were all moving like we were wading through molasses and taking wide, bow-legged strides, but we eventually got the hang of the extra weight and the exaggerated movements. Towards the end, we were all but running down the slopes at our normal pace, so it just took some trial and error.
Ready to set out!
Before we were used to it and just starting out, though, I happened to look up and saw some guys literally hanging off the glacier. Looks like we’d found the ice climbers do the extreme way up - I suddenly had a burning desire to play Super Smash Bros. Melee. They were going at it pretty hardcore, too, and gradually pulling themselves up over the edge with nothing but an ice pick and ropes. I sort of felt like pointing out that they could just go around and get there the same way, but in the words of Captain Kirk, why climb a mountain? Because it’s there. Enough said. We left them to it and were content to walk up the normal way.
Starting the climb up and looking at crazy people
Our guide, “Dan,” made it especially easy for us by carving out the stairs as we went with his pick ax. That was pretty cool. Without even pausing in his step, he would just swing this gigantic ax off of his shoulder and tear the ice apart so that we could get past. I guess the “harder” groups have the short end of the stick with this because they have to go first and make all of the stairs, whereas the groups behind them just have to polish them off a bit. Dan was more than up for the challenge, though, because he was barely breaking a sweat in only a T-shirt and shorts. Apparently it was the fifth full-day hike he’d done in a row, and it showed. Legs like tree trunks. Those guys were in ridiculously good shape.
Our awesome, macho guides
As we got higher, there were more and more opportunities to stop and squeeze through ice caves along the way. Some of them were pretty claustrophobic, but it was worth it to be surrounded by completely blue walls that didn’t even look real. Think of that really horrible Batman and Robin movie and how blue the ice looked for Mr. Freeze’s lair and you’ll get the idea. Wow, I’m really breaking out the pop culture references today. Sorry, back to glacier hiking. It became increasingly obvious that, even though we’d gotten up there early in the morning and going non-stop, there was no way we were going to make it even half-way up the glacier before turning back. That thing is huge. It doesn’t look especially intimidating from a distance, but once you’re at the bottom, all you have to do is look up to get an idea of just how monstrous it is. The only people who really go up to the top are the helicopter tour people who get flown up and then walk around a bit. Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about it because after a while, one wall of ice starts to look just like every other wall of ice, so I didn’t need to go another seven hours just to say I’d been to the top.
Continuing up through the ice caves
A few of our team members got K.O’d on the way up. One girl slipped a little bit on the ice and went down like a house of cards. When she got up, her hands were all scraped up from trying to brace her weight on them, but she was a trooper and just carried on anyways. The other Australian guy, Nathan, got a bit more seriously hurt when he fell and clipped himself with his own clamp-on. His knee just wouldn’t stop bleeding. I looked over, and the entire bottom hem of his shorts were soaked red, and it was dribbling down his shin. Being a guy, he kept trying to brush it off and keep going, but Alec - not surprising at all - had a first-aid kit with him and insisted on patching him up. So there were a few mishaps, but nothing too bad, and it was so cold that if you did happen to fall, you didn’t really feel it. I almost took a fall a couple of times when I was going down some especially steep “stairs,” but luckily a nearby rope prevented me from skidding too far.
Our team exploring the dark unknown
One of the cooler (Ha! Bad pun.) things about the glacier was the water. It was freezing cold - obviously - but apparently, it was also the purest kind of water you’ll ever find. Dan said something about how it takes a hundred years for the runoff to reach a certain point, and by then, it’s completely lost all of its bacteria. It’s also from a time back before so much air pollution, so drinking glacier water is supposed to be even better than rain water. Always up for trying new things, I cupped my hands and took a sip. Yep, pretty good. In hindsight, I should have just upended my water bottle and refilled it with the stuff so that I could get a proper sampling that wouldn’t freeze my hands off, but oh well. Pretty cool to say you’ve had glacier water.
Ice caves, from the outside and inside
Dan kept promising us that we’d stop for lunch “soon” every half hour or so. By around 11am, I was getting really hungry on account of the early start and not having a full breakfast. By noon, I was practically starving and thinking of the sandwich packed deep in my bag. We finally stopped at a flat area just before one o’ clock in the afternoon, and I just devoured my lunch in minutes. The others were similarly famished, so we didn’t have a particularly long stop. Instead, Dan informed us that we would start heading back once we were all ready. All of the other groups were in the same state, and we were looking forward to hot showers back at the lodge.
The way back down wasn’t especially eventful. Since it was downhill and we all had a good idea what we were doing by then, it went very quickly. It wasn’t long before we were in range of the rocks again, and Dan led us through a slightly different passageway to the end of the ice. Once we took the clamp-ons off, it was incredibly easy after that. It was like losing two pounds on our feet, so we took the forest paths practically at a jog. And that was basically the end of it all. We caught a shuttle back to the main office, stripped off all the gear and returned it to the staff, and then returned back to Rainforest Retreat for some much-needed rest. Like every stop, there was the invitation to go out and drink, but hardly anyone felt like doing anything after that. I ordered a very nice vegetarian pizza the first night and bangers and mash the second night from the hotel’s café and called it good after that.
The next day was another early start, but not quite as bad as some of the others. We all loaded into the bus and headed out towards Queenstown. More on that next time. Look forward to a giant, multi-part adventure there. Cheers!
Reporting live from Franz Josef Glacier!
The hotel that we stayed in had an area reserved for backpackers and was very nice to look at on the outside, but it had a few things wrong with it inside, namely the showers. We found out the hard way that they had practically no water pressure and that at least one shower was unusable due to cockroaches, but the beds, at least, were alright, and the people there were nice and helpful. We dropped our stuff off there and settled in for the night after deciding which packages to buy for the next day. There was also the option for a heli-hike, in which a helicopter flies you up over the glacier and lands on the top for about an hour of walking around. That sounded cool but was super expensive. Then there was the more extreme ice climbing with people virtually crawling up the side of the glacier with ice picks and rope. Also very expensive. I decided to take the middle, more reasonable option that involved an all-day hike up the glacier with a guide. That was still a bit pricey, but it was more in my ballpark estimate than the other options. So we went to bed, got as much sleep as we could, and then got up early the next morning to do the big hike.
We had to meet over at the activity center to sign in and get all of our gear. The day before, they had showed us a safety DVD that had kind of freaked us out because they made it sound ten times more dangerous than bungy jumping and sky diving combined. They kept emphasizing things like falling, avalanches, hypothermia, dehydration, and the like while making sure that we knew all of the risks listed on the waiver form. Then they specifically mentioned that we couldn’t wear jeans because apparently they itch and retain water if they wet, which sucked because all I had by way of pants was jeans. I just don’t own shorts or anything else. So I had searched everywhere the night before for a pair of light-weight, inexpensive pants and found absolutely nothing. I finally ended up wearing my pajama sweatpants underneath the waterproof pants they give you, and that worked out fine.
After all of that talk about possible injury or death, I was actually a little worried about the hike in a way that I hadn’t been for other “adventure” sports. I was thinking of those spikes on the bottom of our clamp-ons and how easy it would be to fall and impale your other leg with one. Turns out that they’re totally paranoid, though. It was about as dangerous and exhausting as walking down the street to get the mail. I don’t know why they built it up like that because I was prepared for another Tongariro when I got the bunny hills version. Oh well. Long story short: they loaded us up with all of our gear and made sure we had enough food for lunch later on. They gave us over-pants, a large blue jacket, gloves, boots, a beanie, and sunglasses for the trek, so we all looked pretty much the same. As always, I brought way too much stuff with me, so my backpack was uncomfortably heavy all day, especially after the sun came out and I started stripping off layers.
They put all of us in a bus and drove us out to the trail head after a few more orientation notes. Anyone can hike out to the start of the glacier if they want to for free, but they don’t allow anyone past a certain point without a guide because I guess there have been accidents. First, they led us through a little forest path for about twenty minutes, so we got to enjoy the foliage and the last bit of flat ground for a while. That eventually opened up into a large valley of rocks and riverbeds with the glacier off in the distance. Looking at it, it didn’t seem all that far away or especially large, but our guide informed us that it was an optical illusion and that it would actually take thirty minutes to reach the base of it. We also had to start thinking about our confidence level and just how in shape we were because we were supposed to separate out into groups ranked by difficulty. The most fit, experienced hikers were instructed to join groups 1 or 2, and the ones who wanted a completely easy hike were told to join groups 5 or 6. Anyone unsure or somewhere in-between was supposed to go into groups 3 and 4. Since I didn’t want to kill myself but wasn’t a complete wuss either, I ended up in Group 4. Looking back on it, though, I could have easily gone with 1 or 2 and been just fine. It really wasn’t all that challenging, but most of my friends were in 4 as well, so that was nice.
The base and waterfalls, as seen from the edge of the trees
We set off towards the base, taking photos as we went, and I ended up hanging with Mirva, a Dutch girl I had met the day before. We had a similar pace, so I ended up staying near her for the majority of the day. We separated off into our designated groups and continued along the river at a brisk walk. Our guide…I want to say “Dan,” but I’m not sure it that’s right, explained that the coloring of the glacier can tell a few things about it. The bluer the ice is, for example, the colder and denser it is. And there was one particular section that was completely covered with brown dust, kind of like a giant dirty snowball. Dan informed us that that was left over from the big Australian dust storms a few years ago that came across to New Zealand. So scientists and observant people can figure out a lot of things that have happened in the world by looking at glaciers.
Notice the difference in color?
Along the way, we encountered several amazing waterfalls and a few passing mountain goats. Apparently the crack that goes down the side of the mountain goes all the way under the valley and comes up the other side, going as deep as the canyon is wide. So I imagine that somewhere way down beneath the rock we were standing on, there must be a really cool depository of waterfall runoffs underneath the glacier. Hmm. So we finally got up to the actual glacier and started climbing up the rocks. That part was pretty easy, but it wasn’t long before we hit the ice, which required clamp-ons on our boots, otherwise we would fall right off the glacier. It was a little awkward at first because we were all moving like we were wading through molasses and taking wide, bow-legged strides, but we eventually got the hang of the extra weight and the exaggerated movements. Towards the end, we were all but running down the slopes at our normal pace, so it just took some trial and error.
Ready to set out!
Before we were used to it and just starting out, though, I happened to look up and saw some guys literally hanging off the glacier. Looks like we’d found the ice climbers do the extreme way up - I suddenly had a burning desire to play Super Smash Bros. Melee. They were going at it pretty hardcore, too, and gradually pulling themselves up over the edge with nothing but an ice pick and ropes. I sort of felt like pointing out that they could just go around and get there the same way, but in the words of Captain Kirk, why climb a mountain? Because it’s there. Enough said. We left them to it and were content to walk up the normal way.
Starting the climb up and looking at crazy people
Our guide, “Dan,” made it especially easy for us by carving out the stairs as we went with his pick ax. That was pretty cool. Without even pausing in his step, he would just swing this gigantic ax off of his shoulder and tear the ice apart so that we could get past. I guess the “harder” groups have the short end of the stick with this because they have to go first and make all of the stairs, whereas the groups behind them just have to polish them off a bit. Dan was more than up for the challenge, though, because he was barely breaking a sweat in only a T-shirt and shorts. Apparently it was the fifth full-day hike he’d done in a row, and it showed. Legs like tree trunks. Those guys were in ridiculously good shape.
Our awesome, macho guides
As we got higher, there were more and more opportunities to stop and squeeze through ice caves along the way. Some of them were pretty claustrophobic, but it was worth it to be surrounded by completely blue walls that didn’t even look real. Think of that really horrible Batman and Robin movie and how blue the ice looked for Mr. Freeze’s lair and you’ll get the idea. Wow, I’m really breaking out the pop culture references today. Sorry, back to glacier hiking. It became increasingly obvious that, even though we’d gotten up there early in the morning and going non-stop, there was no way we were going to make it even half-way up the glacier before turning back. That thing is huge. It doesn’t look especially intimidating from a distance, but once you’re at the bottom, all you have to do is look up to get an idea of just how monstrous it is. The only people who really go up to the top are the helicopter tour people who get flown up and then walk around a bit. Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about it because after a while, one wall of ice starts to look just like every other wall of ice, so I didn’t need to go another seven hours just to say I’d been to the top.
Continuing up through the ice caves
A few of our team members got K.O’d on the way up. One girl slipped a little bit on the ice and went down like a house of cards. When she got up, her hands were all scraped up from trying to brace her weight on them, but she was a trooper and just carried on anyways. The other Australian guy, Nathan, got a bit more seriously hurt when he fell and clipped himself with his own clamp-on. His knee just wouldn’t stop bleeding. I looked over, and the entire bottom hem of his shorts were soaked red, and it was dribbling down his shin. Being a guy, he kept trying to brush it off and keep going, but Alec - not surprising at all - had a first-aid kit with him and insisted on patching him up. So there were a few mishaps, but nothing too bad, and it was so cold that if you did happen to fall, you didn’t really feel it. I almost took a fall a couple of times when I was going down some especially steep “stairs,” but luckily a nearby rope prevented me from skidding too far.
Our team exploring the dark unknown
One of the cooler (Ha! Bad pun.) things about the glacier was the water. It was freezing cold - obviously - but apparently, it was also the purest kind of water you’ll ever find. Dan said something about how it takes a hundred years for the runoff to reach a certain point, and by then, it’s completely lost all of its bacteria. It’s also from a time back before so much air pollution, so drinking glacier water is supposed to be even better than rain water. Always up for trying new things, I cupped my hands and took a sip. Yep, pretty good. In hindsight, I should have just upended my water bottle and refilled it with the stuff so that I could get a proper sampling that wouldn’t freeze my hands off, but oh well. Pretty cool to say you’ve had glacier water.
Ice caves, from the outside and inside
Dan kept promising us that we’d stop for lunch “soon” every half hour or so. By around 11am, I was getting really hungry on account of the early start and not having a full breakfast. By noon, I was practically starving and thinking of the sandwich packed deep in my bag. We finally stopped at a flat area just before one o’ clock in the afternoon, and I just devoured my lunch in minutes. The others were similarly famished, so we didn’t have a particularly long stop. Instead, Dan informed us that we would start heading back once we were all ready. All of the other groups were in the same state, and we were looking forward to hot showers back at the lodge.
The way back down wasn’t especially eventful. Since it was downhill and we all had a good idea what we were doing by then, it went very quickly. It wasn’t long before we were in range of the rocks again, and Dan led us through a slightly different passageway to the end of the ice. Once we took the clamp-ons off, it was incredibly easy after that. It was like losing two pounds on our feet, so we took the forest paths practically at a jog. And that was basically the end of it all. We caught a shuttle back to the main office, stripped off all the gear and returned it to the staff, and then returned back to Rainforest Retreat for some much-needed rest. Like every stop, there was the invitation to go out and drink, but hardly anyone felt like doing anything after that. I ordered a very nice vegetarian pizza the first night and bangers and mash the second night from the hotel’s café and called it good after that.
The next day was another early start, but not quite as bad as some of the others. We all loaded into the bus and headed out towards Queenstown. More on that next time. Look forward to a giant, multi-part adventure there. Cheers!
Reporting live from Franz Josef Glacier!