Climbing on ice
Franz Joseph glacier is travelling at a rate of 1 metre per year. It is one of the only glaciers in the world that is resting at only 300 feet above sea level which gives it the class of a ‘Warm Glacier’ meaning that there is a lot of running water all over it. There are a few things you can opt to do when you are here, you can Hike over it (either a full or half day), you can chopper over it (which is VERY expensive, but can give you the most amazing views over the whole glacier) or you can do some ice climbing.
Having done a fair bit of climbing back at home, I was so excited to get out on the ice. The glacier itself is pretty breathtaking. Standing at the end of the valley that sits in front of it, you look across to the foot of the glacier. It was at this point that our guide told us that what we saw was actually 2 Km away. Brilliant.
The walk there is actually pretty nice – the scenery around a glacier, as you can imagine, is beautiful. And without knowing it, we were actually standing on the glacier within 25 minutes. The bottom of it is covered it debris from the landslides that apparently happen very often, but when they do they are amazing to witness. Wasn’t entirely sure if I would have wanted one to happen when I was halfway up an ice face, amazing or not.
Ice climbing is very different to actual climbing. You can put your feet and hands anywhere you want, as long as you can get them into the ice. But it’s the actual process of doing this, actually getting the picks and the crampons into the ice, that really is the hard part. Especially when the ice you are climbing up hasn’t seen sunlight in a good few hundred years.
The whole experience only cost NZ$250 (£125) and I had an amazing time and saw some incredible things. But there was another cost that I did not set out to spend. On the first climb of the day, my fourth throw of the pick found itself well and truly lodged in the ice. On trying to get it out I found that it wasn’t as easy as all the others. The guide shouted up at me “just give it a good yank!”, so I did, and the thing came out of the ice and straight into my mouth. It didn’t actually hurt that much, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t knocked half a tooth out.
Fantastic.
I still managed to hold on to that stray piece of tooth though. A nice little memento. And who else can say they lost a tooth ice climbing in New Zealand? At least that’s how I’m choosing to look at it.
Matt M
STA UK WTI 2010