Got Ice?

So the morning started off bright and early with cereal, yoghurt, and toast. Best of all, parting the curtains, we saw clear, bright, blue skies! The low front that was supposed to bring rain swept past in the night and we were left with an awesome day! Considering it rains 2 out of 3 days here, we were very happy.

After breakfast, we walked over to the Frans Josef Glacier Guides where we proceeded to get our Gortex pants, jackets, wool socks, hiking boots, crampons, beanie and gloves. The bus ride to the car park (for you Californians who don’t know what a car park is…read parking lot) was about 10 minutes and we were off. The first 45 minutes was a hike across rocks and dirt to the base of the glacier.

Once we were instructed on how to wear crampons and how to walk safely with them, we were off. Our guide, Tai, led us up the glacier. This thing moves roughly 1 meter each day, which is considered a very fast moving glacier. As we climbed, Tai used his pick-axe to fine tune the steps that these guys cut into the ice each day.

We walked onward and upward, crossing crevasses, glacial lakes, and lots and lots of ice. The first big obstacle was a crevasse that our guides had worked on for two days. Essentially, the guides sat on top of the crevasse and hacked away at the surrounding ice to plug up the lower part and create a bridge. Below the bridge, there was roughly 20 feet of nothing. We had to remove our packs, well Greg did since he was carrying everything, in order to slither sideways through this thing. Pretty cool. After a quick lunch break of sandwiches, we continued further up the glacier.

Eventually, we hit an optional section where we were climbing up a vertical ice face. It wasn’t that long, but it proved to be challenging enough. Another quick slither through a crevasse and we made a big loop back to the starting point for this section. After spending roughly 6 hours on the ice, we began our descent down the glacier and back to the car park.

Back in town, we were starving and craving beer. Even the health conscious Cheryl wanted a cheeseburger, fries and an ice cold beer. It must have been an intense day. Unfortunately, we found out that the entire Franz Josef township had a power outage. Damn it! So, we walked back to the grocery store, which had a generator, and picked up a rotisserie chicken and a six pack of Monteiths summer ale (it is summer here you know). Yum! Within an hour, 5 of the 6 beers were gone (you can guess who drank most of them) and the chicken was a pile of bones.