Franz Josef is a town, but it's also the name of a very large glacier on the West Coast of the South Island (Ka Roimata or Hinehukatere in Maori). The primary purpose for visiting the town is to visit the glacier. Some people take a walk to the edge of the glacier, take some pictures and walk away, but noooo, not me - oh no - I booked a full-day guided trek onto the glacier! What was I thinking? I was a bit worried because, well, I don't feel like I am in that great of shape. No time to contemplate, I had to get moving!
The glacier was named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by the German explorer, Julius von Haast in 1865. He was the first European to document the glacier from a steam ship in 1859. The glacier is currently 12 km long and terminates 19 km from the Tasman Sea. It is the worlds steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier and it is an amazing site!
I arrived at the tour office at 9:00 a.m. We were given the run down on how to collect our equipment. Jacket, over-trousers, socks, boots, crampons, hat and gloves - check! We boarded a bus, arrived at the national park, were separated into groups and headed for the bottom of the glacier. The walk to the bottom of the glacier itself was a good distance - over 2km, although the distance was deceiving - it did not look as far as it was. We proceeded past the "Do not pass" sign (gulp) and just before we hit the ice, we put the crampons on our shoes. Up, up and up - through crevasses and up ice hills. Our guide, Troy, was awesome! He made sure out path was good, carved out steps in the ice and helped a few of the "less sure footed" hikers, but not me - I was loving it - let's go higher! There were parts on the trek where you had to squeeze, really squeeze, yourself through the crevasses! For the "squeezing" parts, we had to wear our jackets to elbow our way through the ice. Unfortunately, I did not check the size of my jacket before I left the tour office. The guy gave me an XXL - huh? I know I need to loose a few L B's, but c'mon! We were really lucky - we had great weather - no rain, which for this area, is very unusual. Anyway, the jacket worked fine and I'm happy it wasn't raining.
It was a full day of hiking and I loved it! Nature Girl did it again - Gucci sunglasses and all!
3 comments:
Nice job Jojo. Glaciers can be scary and dangerous. You're in better shape than you think. I'll take you with me on my next Mt. Shasta trek as my sherpa.
Jojo,
Wow, big doings down under. Love the blog and keeping up with you.
so so cool jojo!! and love how you were stylin in your gucci shades while doing it all :)
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