We spent one night in Franz Joseph town, had fresh fish and chips for dinner and made the most of the happy hour in the local pub while discussing which glacier to climb the next day. We’d seen Fox so we opted for Franz Joseph, supposedly the more impressive (but less accessible) of the two. Franz Joseph has been known to advance up to 5m in a single day but at the moment it’s averaging about 1m a day but the terminal is declining. Apparently the wreckage of a plane that crashed into the glacier, 3.5km from the terminal face, in 1943 made it to the bottom 3 ½ years later.
Mark went out early the next morning to get some shots and there are so many but here are a few of my favourites.
Anyhow, back to the glacier. This is Franz Joseph and again, distance is deceptive as the glacier terminal is about 2km away from where this photo was taken.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
This ice cave is apparently about ½ the size it was a few weeks ago and even while we were there massive pieces of ice were breaking off, crashing into the river below and the noise they made was phenomenal.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
This photo tries to give an idea of the glacier size. The ice cave is a tiny black dot in the bottom middle of the photo. The collection zone at the top of the glacier has in the region of 40m of snowfall a year. An incredible amount compared to some of the worlds ski fields.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
Thanks to a massive amount of rain in this area over the past few weeks, the river had changed direction which meant we had to hike along the hillside to get to the glacier terminal. To put the word 'massive' in perspective, the average rainfall is around 5000mm per year. That amount makes London sound dry! Anyhow, we had to go up into the forest and clamber up and down a rocky track to get to the glacier. Some of the rock formations were really beautiful
We hiked up the ice face using steps carved into the ice. The guides maintain these tracks daily as one day they’re there, then they’re gone – melted, moved, covered or whatever.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
We were lucky with the weather (again) and you can see it wasn’t that cold
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
The glacier is quite high but we had to hike over steep piles of rubble to get to the ice
This is looking upwards
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
then we were on the ice and you could see the path the glacier had carved through the rocks, down to the sea
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
There were some great views of the blue/white ice with a backdrop of dark green forest
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
and this narrow chasm had everyone stopping for photos
Apparently they’d had a German chap go headfirst down one of these cracks a few weeks earlier and they had to winch him out by his feet!
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
I reckon it almost looks like we’re superimposed into this photo...
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
On the way down the guys were pretty careful and one chap stood at the end of the steps. It turned out he was standing there as, a few days previously, an Indian chap had gone straight over the edge and ended up in hospital with a ruptured liver. Yuk.
Mark will do almost anything for a good photo but I think he was the only one of us who could get up there!
While we were on the ice, massive sections of the ice cave had collapsed and chunks of ice were floating down the river. I decided to try and get one and see if I could smash it.
what I didn’t realise was that my bag was wide open and I nearly lost the contents in the river! Thankfully nothing fell out and I managed to grab a big chunk of ice
but it wouldn’t smash!! Much to my frustration and no matter how hard I threw it, it just bounced.
Then we went rock hopping. I’m not sure how Euan managed to sneak ahead to take pics but I think Mark and I had mucked around in the river with the ice for far too long. Give us water and we’re happy…
then we ran out of puff and built a rock tower that collapsed shortly after Mark heaved a massive rock on top of it. Euan and I had to get out of the way in a hurry
We were pretty knackered at the end of the day and keen to make our way to Hokitika where we were spending the night. Mark went bowling across the road to the car, jumped in the back and said “who put all this crap on the back seat?”, pushed it all over the other side then realised it wasn’t me in the drivers seat. It was someone else’s car. He apologised profusely and got out in a hurry. Man, we laughed!!
Mark went out early the next morning to get some shots and there are so many but here are a few of my favourites.
Anyhow, back to the glacier. This is Franz Joseph and again, distance is deceptive as the glacier terminal is about 2km away from where this photo was taken.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
This ice cave is apparently about ½ the size it was a few weeks ago and even while we were there massive pieces of ice were breaking off, crashing into the river below and the noise they made was phenomenal.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
This photo tries to give an idea of the glacier size. The ice cave is a tiny black dot in the bottom middle of the photo. The collection zone at the top of the glacier has in the region of 40m of snowfall a year. An incredible amount compared to some of the worlds ski fields.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
Thanks to a massive amount of rain in this area over the past few weeks, the river had changed direction which meant we had to hike along the hillside to get to the glacier terminal. To put the word 'massive' in perspective, the average rainfall is around 5000mm per year. That amount makes London sound dry! Anyhow, we had to go up into the forest and clamber up and down a rocky track to get to the glacier. Some of the rock formations were really beautiful
We hiked up the ice face using steps carved into the ice. The guides maintain these tracks daily as one day they’re there, then they’re gone – melted, moved, covered or whatever.
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
We were lucky with the weather (again) and you can see it wasn’t that cold
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
The glacier is quite high but we had to hike over steep piles of rubble to get to the ice
This is looking upwards
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
then we were on the ice and you could see the path the glacier had carved through the rocks, down to the sea
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
There were some great views of the blue/white ice with a backdrop of dark green forest
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
and this narrow chasm had everyone stopping for photos
Apparently they’d had a German chap go headfirst down one of these cracks a few weeks earlier and they had to winch him out by his feet!
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
I reckon it almost looks like we’re superimposed into this photo...
(Photo: Mark Cooper)
On the way down the guys were pretty careful and one chap stood at the end of the steps. It turned out he was standing there as, a few days previously, an Indian chap had gone straight over the edge and ended up in hospital with a ruptured liver. Yuk.
Mark will do almost anything for a good photo but I think he was the only one of us who could get up there!
While we were on the ice, massive sections of the ice cave had collapsed and chunks of ice were floating down the river. I decided to try and get one and see if I could smash it.
what I didn’t realise was that my bag was wide open and I nearly lost the contents in the river! Thankfully nothing fell out and I managed to grab a big chunk of ice
but it wouldn’t smash!! Much to my frustration and no matter how hard I threw it, it just bounced.
Then we went rock hopping. I’m not sure how Euan managed to sneak ahead to take pics but I think Mark and I had mucked around in the river with the ice for far too long. Give us water and we’re happy…
then we ran out of puff and built a rock tower that collapsed shortly after Mark heaved a massive rock on top of it. Euan and I had to get out of the way in a hurry
We were pretty knackered at the end of the day and keen to make our way to Hokitika where we were spending the night. Mark went bowling across the road to the car, jumped in the back and said “who put all this crap on the back seat?”, pushed it all over the other side then realised it wasn’t me in the drivers seat. It was someone else’s car. He apologised profusely and got out in a hurry. Man, we laughed!!
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