Franz Joseph Glacier

We got lucky. Real lucky. After arriving in Franz Jospeh in the afternoon, we went to book our glacier climb. We were told that everything was booked, and I was understandably a bit perturbed. After hearing that, we rushed out to try and book another tour, yet it turns out there was only one company that runs tours in town (which we had just left). So we headed back thinking we would book a half-day. Somehow, with luck on our side, we were squeezed onto the full day for the following morning. Needless to say, my ‘little’ temper tantrum was all for naught. After all this drama and before sun down, we headed over to the glacier to take a few photos on foot and then had a nice little pasta meal in preparation for climbing.

The next day we awoke early, grabbed all of the provided gear at the center, and boarded buses out to the glacier. The guides had the whole operation down like a well-oiled machine, and thankfully not much time was wasted. Within 45 minutes we were at the foot of the glacier receiving instructions on how to use the crampons (they’re like claws for your shoes!) for our journey onto the ice.

All the tourists were broken into 6 groups comprising 11, and luckily Veronica and I managed to steer clear of the group of blabbering UK girls who talked constantly about the most trivial and mundane topics imaginable. I thought of reciting verbatim one of the pathetic conversations here, but halfway through writing it I almost slit my wrists whilst trying to recall the nature of their moronic jibber jabber.

But I digress, from the minute our crampons dug into the first step of ice on the glacier, it was as if we were in a different realm. I hate to evoke the most obvious comparison to the icy environment, but it was truly something out of Lord of the Rings. The huge granite cliff faces towering over the glacier was absolutely awe-inspiring. And the glacier itself, well damn, I am almost at a loss for words in describing it. There were so many different forms of icy terrains up there; from rolling hills of ice, to flat plains of ice, to huge waves that created gigantic valleys in the ice. Perhaps the coolest thing about the glacier is that it is forever changing as the glacier moves over a meter a day down into the valley. One week a cave will become a valley, and then a month or two later a valley will have become part of the flat lands.

As we climbed, we got to enter a tunnel of ice and explore ice caverns. It was amazing. And it was sooo cold. Some of the ice caverns were so tight that you had to walk sideways to get out! In addition, you got really wet and luckily we were prepared and had raincoats. During our expedition, we were told that we could fill up our water bottles with glacier water at the many glacier streams. Veronica and I jumped at the chance and had two bottles filled. The water tasted really good! It was truly some ‘high quality H2O’.

A couple of times we had to stop for other members of the group to catch up and just standing there our feet and hands turned into ice blocks. It was a little uncomfortable but then you got used to it pretty quickly. Once we started climbing sweat would immediately start pouring forth so we warmed up pretty fast. We had 15 minutes for lunch - Veronica almost cried when we started to move again. It was so cold!

Our all day tour cost $150NZ each, and I was prepared to be a tad disappointed. However, at the end of the day Veronica and I were in complete agreement that the tour was completely worth it. The climb wasn’t even that treacherous, yet we woke up with really sore muscles the following morning.

Despite the sore legs we had an epic time. Hopefully the pictures do it justice.