Greetings everyone!
It’s that time again…… I am going to do something different this time. Since I am not in New Zealand anymore, I am just going to sum up the next few countries and get you al up to speed with where I am now. That means I am not going to be writing about the entire excursion in detail, but instead a short description. I will also include a link to all the photos and videos I took. Lets be honest, who really reads everything I write? You all want to see pictures, right? Here we go!
If you want to see all the photos got to this link.... http://cfrobose.com/drkevin/glacier%20trekking/Ice/

After we left Nelson our next big adventure was in a place called Franz Joseph. Franz Joseph is known for its Glacier trekking. Yes, glacier trekking. It’s the only place on this earth where you begin your climb in a temperate rain forest, and end up on a glacier. This was a high light for me. The company I went with was the only company that was licensed to guide at these elevations. Our 36 person group was broken up to 4 groups of 8. The first group was for the strongest and fastest climbers. The second group was for the slower climbers and the last 2 group were for the even slower climbers. It wasn’t expected that the last 2 climbing groups would go as high up the glacier as the first two groups. After a fast hike to the glacier, the head guide chose me as the second man behind him in the first group. That ment I got to help out a little! Upon reaching the glacier, we stopped to put on our cramp-ons. Cramp-ons are metal spikes that go on the bottom of these special “glacier” boots giving you traction. For those who don’t know glaciers carved out most of the valleys on the south island. The Franz Joseph glacier moves about 1 meter per day. So as you would expect, they must carve out, with pic-axes, a new route daily. Since our group was the first group on the ice that day, our guide had a lot of work to do. Climbing on the ice was really exciting for me. I liked it because it wasn’t predictable like climbing a mountain. At any giving moment, you would feel and hear the glacier move. Sometimes we would be jumping over crevasses 40 feet deep. You had to pay close attention to your foot placement; otherwise you could fall down a deep crack in the ice. I later found out that one week later two English people died on that exact climb, with the same guiding company, because they had slipped. I felt very comfortable on the ice. I felt so comfortable that the head guide asked me twice if I was interested in a guiding job. I really thought about it for a few moments, I always wanted to do something like guiding or working on a ski mountain. I never had the time being a full time student for most of my life. Needless to say, I declined his offer but kept his name. The climb took a little over 8 hours before we got to the bottom. At the bottom, we saw one of the coolest things, the ice breaking off. These large “bus” sized pieces just broke off the glacier and went tumbling down the valley. The Franz Joseph Glacier was one of the few glaciers in the world that wasn’t retreating, it was growing! So much for that global warming theory! As you’ll see from the photos, I loved it up on that glacier. I am becoming excited for my future challenge, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro! For now, my next stop was Queenstown, home of the extreme!