Ice Caves & Other Fun "Features"

In 2006 when Doug & I were in Alaska, one of the highlights of our trip was taking a guided hike on Exit Glacier in Seward in which we donned crampons & walked on the glacier for about an hour.

When we decided to come to New Zealand & learned that we could do this here - we thought, "Absolutely!" Since we enjoyed it so much in Alaska, we decided to sign up for the full day glacier hike here, which promised at least 4 hours on Franz Josef Glacier.

It turns out - 4 hours is a LOT of time to be walking around on a glacier. (I think we were actually out there even longer than that... However long it was, my feet thought it was about an hour too long...)

That said - what a day!

The day began by breaking the 55 of us on the full day tour into smaller groups according to the pace we were planning on traveling. Still not fully recovered from the Milford Track (You should see my legs & feet - they're a series of bruises, blisters, & miscellaneous bumps!) we elected to travel in the middle of the road 3rd group, which went not too fast, but not too slow.

After strapping on our crampons, we marched up to the terminal face of the glacier & proceeded upward via the steps painstakingly carved out of the ice by the Glacier Guides, day after day. The steps were steep & exhausting, but got us onto the glacier immediately.

After reaching the top of the steps, we were given an ice ax, which certainly made us feel important (& gave the appearance that we knew what we were doing!), & then we continued upward to where the interesting ice features currently were. As glaciers are constantly shifting, so too is the location of their interesting features (caves, tunnels, falls, streams, etc.)

We walked on top of the ice, through glacial rivers, surrounded by 30 ft tall ice on either side. We climbed up & up & up & shimmied down stairs guided by ropes, through impossibly narrow passage ways that at times, I doubted our ability to fit through.

Eventually we reached my favorite feature, an ice tube. As we crawled through this tunnel like structure, I was riveted by the color of the ice: a brilliant, indescribable blue.

From there we ascended to our high point, from which we had an amazing look up @ the ice fields (frequented by helicopters full of tourists seeing the glacier the easy way) & below @ the glacier we hiked over & at the mountains on either side of us. Strangely, the Franz Josef Glacier is surrounded by New Zealand Rainforests - which makes the whole thing seem a little surreal.

After that, we began our descent, which proved much easier than our ascent. About midway down, we stopped & went through an ice cave. It was pretty amazing to climb through this cave made out of ice, with a river flowing below you. (And I admit - I was thoroughly relieved to make it through without having fallen into the stream...)

We also crossed over the rocky moraine of the glacier, something that finally enabled us to understand all the moraines in Wisconsin that have been carved out by glaciers.

All in all - it was another fantastic, yet exhausting day.

BTW - Upon reflecting further about the Milford Track & continuing to process that experience we realized there is MUCH we left out of that blog post, so make sure you ask us for details when we return home! There is much to tell!