Ice Climbing on Franz Josef
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
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82
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Trip End
May 08, 2008
Franz Josef,
New Zealand
Sunday, June 10, 2007
We had to start off real early in the morning and it was raining too which sucked this glacier looks really similiar to the fox glacier but it is more accessible. It takes a few minutes to get used to walking in the special gear they give you but it was a lot of fun.. Took over an hour of walking to get to some of the ice cliffs that we were going to climb... its not like rock climbing at all but it was great fun.. there were only 12 of us on the trip and the weather cleared up too which was fantastic...when you are walking on the glacier you have to walk through all these caverns, caves and raven's.
dave me and dimitri
. its hard work.. you make very little progress distance wise.. We did 6 differnt climbs on the ice cliffs and you really have to drive the ice axes into the ice walls for grip but its pretty amazing when u are just hanging there 25 metres up holding on tojust one ice axe... granted you are roped up too but thats beside the point. It was back then to the hostel for the evening and we all piled into the hot tub with a load of beers.. the hot tub was outside and kinda funny when ur sitting there in warm water and its -5 degrees outside.. From there it was dinner and out to the Blue ice bar to meet up with the rest of the climbers from the trip. Following morning dave dimitri and louise headed on north .. and i was going south again.. i ran into Tam and Cat who were in the Catlins and Queenstown same time as me too so i went along to peters lake with them before moving on south again heading for Haast pass and Wanaka..
