Franz' Glacier Frolics
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2008
1
40
93
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
Franz Josef,
South Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The west coast is known for its rugged terrain, beautiful scenery and lots of bloody rain. It did not dissapoint in this regard.
First stop was the slightly less impressive of the two big glaciers round these parts, Fox. We decided out of the two we would take a guided climbing tour of Franz Joseph and just have a look from a far at Fox. So we drove up and took the 40 minute walk up to the front of the glacier. The walk gets you about 80m from the front and its even more impressive than a close up glance at a Foxes Glacier Mint. You can see where the glacier has ripped through the valley and they even have markings along the road showing you where the glacier came to years ago. These massive glaciers are constantly on the move, receeding or proceeding down the valley depending on the fall of snow
Stop for lunch
.We pushed on down the road another half an hour to the town of Franz Joseph where we decided to spend two nights in the very cool Alpine motor home. This place had a nice bar and restaurant, hot-tubs and all the usual facilitys. The bar's motto was "it rains, we pour", and it bloody lashed from the high heavens so some time may have been spent in said bar.
On the second day we set of early on our guided climb of the glacier. We were fully decked out in 1940's style climbing gear of clampons and cleats etc. and were very excited about hitting the ice. The walk to the glacier itself was a good hike of about an hour and a half. When we got there we put on the cleats and split into teams. Myself and Murph opted for the so-called advanced team hoping for a bit of adventure. Unfortunately the climb was a bit of a bummer in my opinion. There was really no challenge and most of the time we spent waiting in line as our guide fastened ropes, cut out steps in the ice or even bravely removed fearsome wee rocks from our path lest some poor soul were to lose his footing and be cast o'er some crevas into the ghastly hells below. Although the glacier itself is in fact very beautiful to behold when you are up on the white ice and snow and away from the front which is grey and full of rock and melting ice, I felt that we didnt get far enough onto it and that we were only on the ice for a short period
Mighty Murph
. I would advise anyone interested to go on the full day packadge or even splash out and take the helli-hike where you are brought right up the glacier and dropped off for the hike.The way back down was even less exciting and reminded me of waiting in line in the minus 5 ice-bar in Queenstown. Except at least there was a drink waiting for you at the end of the line in the ice-bar and not a 11/2 hour hike. Maybe we have just been spoilt with high-octane adventures on this trip but the Franz Joseph glacier hike was a bit of a dud considering the whopper price it costs.
We got back to our little van and cooked up a storm accompanied by a nice bottle of NZ vino. Tommoro we had the biggest drive of the trip so far. We were setting of to Abel Tasman National Park.
