We had an early start and headed to the info office for 8am. As per usual, we weren’t quite as early as planned, so were a bit rushed – we checked out of the backpackers and Marc booked a place in Fox Glacier just down the road. We arrived and queued for our equipment – shoes, socks, talons, gloves, jacket, bum bag, tea-cosy head-piece – and got kitted out ready climb ice!!
We jumped on the bus and headed to the glacier. The glacier itself was a couple of kms from the car park, so we had a nice little walk through rain forest before stopping at a waterfall for a few snaps.
Then we caught our first sight of the glacier, and it’s huge!! Its probably not quite what we expected, though not sure what we were expecting. It’s hard to appreciate the geographic wonder of this creation, as it looks like a big white rock, covered in dirt. It isn’t cold, it’s not snowing, we’re on the ground – well 200m above sea level!! From pictures we’ve seen, the glacier looked a pure, brilliant blue, whereas what we see is a dirty white. This is probably because the clean stuff is higher up, on the untouched, rarely explored, glacier. Also, there is no rain to wash the dirt away, which we’re glad of, recovering from the flu ;) It rains here on 250 days of the year!!
It’s worth mentioning that the glacier is continually “growing”. When it rains/snows at night, at the top of the glacier, at over 3000m above sea level, it’s cold, and the water freezes. During the day, when the temperature rises, the outer layer of ice melts, and runs down the glacier – this creates a river which comes out of the centre of the glacier. When night draws in and temperatures again drop to freezing, the melted water re-freezes further down the glacier. It then rains/snows again… At night it grows by 1.5m, in day it shrinks by 1m, so is gradually heading to sea, and is continuously moving (creating rock flour)!!
The amazing thing is the longitude of the glacier is the northern hemisphere equivalent to the south of France!! Remember, this is the middle of summer and 200m above sea level. You may find a glacier in France starting at 3000m!!
Anyway, the proper tour begins here, and we are sectioned off into groups 1-4, 1 being a real challenge, 4 being a stroll in the park. We opt for group 2 but as it’s over subscribed we volunteer to drop to group 3, as after all we are recovering from a severe illness!! In hindsight, we judged this right as it was still pretty tough going. Our guide was an Italian woman, who really cracked the whip. We were always the first to arrive places, despite normally leaving last!!
At the bottom of the glacier we doned our talons whilst ignoring the instructions of the guide and instead watching the Kia mountain parrots. We could already tell that some of the girls in the group didn’t like our guide, who was quite unsympathetic to the nerves of the girls…
We started our climb, which began with some ready carved ice steps. All the guides continuously cut away at the steps with their axes to keep the shape of the steps as they melt, erode with use, and get washed away by the oncoming melted water. You begin to respect how physically demanding it is being a guide. By the end, we were exhausted just from the walking and climbing, let alone carrying an axe and smashing it at the ice every 5 minutes!!
We went up a few levels getting used to the talons, concentrating on not slipping, and getting good foot holds. We picked up our own “picks” that were really just to help us keep balance and check how deep the holes were. Of course, the boys swung these at the ice to see what destruction could be caused, which was not. The odd chipping fell loose, but the ice is solid!!
We were hoping to cross a bridge an over ice canyon, as advertised, but the route had been changed today (they change as the glaciers move, and also to give the guides some variety).
Unfortunately, no-one had told our guide about the change ;) We walked straight passed the new route and headed up this really tricky slope. The guide spent 5, maybe 10 minutes cutting away some really steep steps, setting up a rope to help us climb (it couldn’t be done otherwise), and then we all struggled scaling this mini-cliff, only for the guide to find the route ahead eroded and impassable ;) So back we all go, and going down was just as hard as the climb ;)
As we climbed the views got better, and the ice slightly cleaner. We stopped occasionally for snacks and drinks, and it was only after stopping for longer than 5 minutes did we start to feel a bit nippy. The rest of the time on this oversized ice-cube, we were hot!! It’s incredible that just because it’s big, it can retain enough cold to prevent meltdown, when given the air temperature, it should be melting!!
We eventually found some pure ice, in the form of tunnels. The tunnels are all naturally created (melting, water erosion, and re-freezing) and continually change place and shape. Here, the ice is such an amazing colour, and you just say “awesome”. The ice, the views, the colour, the size, the creation. Of course, the Japanese tourists in the group ahead went one step too far, and took about 200 snaps of the crevice before climbing through. This really annoyed our guide, as she was on a strict clock watch, and she then got a bit shirty with anyone in our group taking photos!! Ev got called to the front of the group for being “too slow” by taking too many photos ;)
We also climbed down an ice hole and out the other side, which was good fun, though slightly scary as we didn’t know where to put our feet. The foot holds were designed for tall people so you had to really stretch and trust the guide that it we dropped down, we would find the hole ;) It was a very tight hole, and reminiscent of Cango Caves in SA ;)
We climbed to a height of about 1000m above sea, so we’d climbed 700-800mtrs, and got some great views. The climb back down the glacier was more treacherous than the climb up. The ascent had sapped a lot of our strength, and the path was a lot slippier and wet after a days melting. There is also the usually complacany that we are on the way down, and almost back, so it’s easy now… One girl slipped over and twisted her ankle slightly – she was ok – and that was just as we began the climb down!! There was quite a few more almost falls and slips, and generally it was the person in front who would support you as you came crashing down on them from behind. Luckily, they always managed a successful catch otherwise it would be the classic dominios effect ;)
Needless to say we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the bottom, and taking our talons off was weird. You get used to wearing them after a while. We now had the long walk back to the bus stop ;(
Luckily, Marc booked a really nice place to stay this evening – the perfect place for resting weary limbs. We drove back to Fox Glacier, 30km south, and stayed at Fox Glacier Lodge. We were booked into the cottage, which was lovely, with loads of character, a nice hot tub, and views of the glacier in the back ground. It had all the extras – fridge full of goodies, food for breakfast, kettle, DVD player, and electric blankets to keep the bed warm :-D
For dinner, we headed to the restaurant next door, The Plateau Cafe & Bar. This did one our the best meals we had in the whole of NZ. Ev had the honey & mustard sweet potato starter and beef medallion for mains and Marc had the pumpkin soup starter and salmon for his mains - delicious! The perfect end to Ev’s birthday (UK time ;)
1 comment:
Well said.
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