Wednesday, June 3, 2009

This Just Keeps Getting Better

Hinehukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover, Tawe, to climb with her. Tawe fell from the peaks to his death. Hinehukatere was broken hearted and her many, many tears froze to form the glacier. - from www.glaciercountry.co.nz

The glacier formed was the current Franz Joseph glacier. The Maori call it Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere - The Tears of the Avalanche Girl (Hinehukatere), clearly because of the legend passed down from generation to generation. This is what I got to experience on Tuesday and my God it was amazing. I am actually having a hard time coming up with words to describe my experiences. They always end up saying "amazing," or "unreal," or "awesome," but there really are no other words to describe them.

Before getting to Franz Joseph, we had an all day travel day on Monday. We left Queenstown early in the morning on Monday, ready and prepared for a day of travel. We made a few stops and eight hours later ended up in Franz Joseph, a tiny town, filled with mostly glacier stores, a few bars, and a tiny market. The Glowworm Cottages would be our home for the next few nights. Bright and early we awoke on Tuesday. We were to be at the Glacier Guide place for 8:15 am, a little early, but we all knew it would be worth it. After getting our gear [jackets, boots, gloves, and crampons] we headed on a bus and landed at a trail.

We walked on the trail for a little while, all 45 of us single file and we were led to a tiny off-trail in the woods. Walking. Walking. Walking. A clearing!! We came to a huge stretch of land, covered in rocks and surrounded by mountain. After getting split into five different groups of fitness level, we headed up to the glacier and once again I was struck with an unreal experience. I was hiking a glacier for an entire day with my new friends with me. Our guide, who is actually Maori, was outstanding, feeding us so much information about what we were walking on, looking at, and about to venture into. We crawled through ice caverns and slid through tiny crevices in ice walls, shooting high into the air. It was beautiful and unlike anything I have ever seen.

Perhaps most interesting was hearing how fast this glacier is advancing a day: 5 meters! Every day, this puppy moves 5 meters. It was cool to think that as we were walking on this percieved sturdy structure, it was moving right under our feet. Simply unreal. What is even more unreal is hearing about global warmings effect on it. While tons of other glaciers throughout the world are still shrinking, including ones on the other side of the southern alps, Franz Joseph is one of the only ones that is still growing. Imagine that. Global warming had nothing on the Franz.

We arrived back to the cottages at 5:30 pm. It was a long day, but of course worth it. We hung out for the night, prepared to once again wake up bright and early for another day of travel, but we would soon find out that it would be a pretty surprising trip!

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