I Walked on a Glacier
Well, I can now say that I walked on a glacier. Big whoop! It is one of only 4 glaciers that are next to, um, temperate rainforests or something. In the world. The two here are the Fox Glacier and the Franz Joseph and the other ones are in Patagonia. (South America)
So we drove to the Fox Glacier, stopped right at the sign for the walk to the glacier, hopped out, and walked to it. It had been raining a ton so there were lots of little streams and bigger streams going across our path. It was then I was glad I had waterproof boots because I could walk right thru the water and not care. I felt like a real hiker. One part was pretty hard because it was a pretty big stream. I had to walk a long time before I found a part that was narrow enough. So we walked pretty close to the “terminal” and it was neat.
Then we hopped into the car and drove 30 mins to Franz Joseph, which is more popular and a bigger town. (hah, “bigger.” Still only like population of 350). We stayed at a great YHA hostel and considered booking a heli-hike, which is where you fly in a helicopter really high in the glacier, walk around a few hours, then fly down. It was much more expensive than just hiking, but it was supposed to be amazing.
However, the helicopters only go out if the weather is perfect and we didn’t want to be waiting around for that. So Jim signed up for a full-day hike (8 hours!) and me, a half-day.
So the next day Jim went off on his hike early and I went to the hiking place and they give you boots, raincoat, gloves, wool socks, crampons (metal things you put on your boots so you can walk on the ice) and you can rent pants and thermal shirts and stuff. I was worried about the boots since I have very delicate feet. Ha ha, it’s true, though. I taped the heck out of them so I wouldn’t get blisters. My boots were saturated with water even when I got them and they actually soaked up water on the hike. So my feet were nice and wet and cold the whole time. Nasty! And the boots were SO heavy!
A view from the glacier. Jim took this on his trek.
So we all got the gear, got on a bus, and started going. It takes an hour just to WALK to the glacier! Finally, when we got to the ice we strap on the crampons.
First, the group of about 40 split into a fast group and slow group. Of course I picked the slow group but within 5 minutes, it was apparent that this was a geriatric group. The guy told me I should go to the faster group when he sensed I was bored with stopping for everyone to take 100 photos every 2 seconds. So I had to sort of run ahead and the other group waited for me. Embarrassing.
The guides would stop and tell you a few things about the glaciers, so that was good. Within a half hour I had to ask them for more blister tape already. Amazingly, however, I ended the day with only one blister.
Since we were the half-day hike, we didn’t get to see nearly as much as the full-dayers. We didn’t get to walk thru ice caves or anything. The hike was hard and the only really cool thing was being up close to the ice and seeing the awesome blue color in it.
This big Australian guy and I were always the last ones in the group and he was really nice. These people are so effortlessly friendly. Anyway, the guides warned us to walk with our feet far apart because if not, your crampon spike will get caught in the straps on your other foot. I was just walking and suddenly I went down and fortunately it was on flat ice. Still hurt, though. Felt like my shoelaces were tied together! No one saw because I was in back. Later the Aussie guy went down the same way but his fall was much more spectacular. He practically flew into the air and went down and his feet were in the air. It looked cool. He was a tough burly guy so he was fine. Earlier he slipped and slid down a little canyon in the ice.
I was glad when we turned around to come back; it was about as much as I could take. Jim came home a few hours later and he’d gone thru ice caves and everything.
I just saw Jim’s pics from the glacier. I am jealous. This is so cool.
AHH!! I have one minute left. See you later!! We’re currently in Greymouth.. might carve some bone jewelry tomorrow!
Tags: New Zealand
Kelly