Franz Josef is "Butt Cold"

After an off day of travel on Thursday (no pictures since Jen got taken down by whatever bug Doug had earlier in the week so we were just trying to get to our next destination as painlessly as possible, but trust us that there were some nice views of mountains and the Tasman Sea), Friday was about the glaciers.





Sue, Chris, and Doug got up early (while Jen recuperated) and drove to nearby Lake Matheson for a quick morning hike around the lake. It was cloudy and rainy at the outset, but as continues to happen, the weather turned in our favor making for a pleasant walk. The views weren’t as spectacular as they could have been on a sunny day, but it was still quite pretty, and you could make out Mt Tasman and Mt Cook in the distance when the clouds parted (Mt Cook is the one on the right).

For the afternoon we all got back together and did a half-day guided hike up Franz Josef glacier. We hiked about 3km across rocks to get to the terminal face of the glacier (that’s where the glacier ends, or terminates), and then the fun began when we stopped to put on our crampons. Somehow Jen managed to get not one, but two large rocks lodged in her spikes on the trip. The crampons weren’t very helpful on the initial rock ascent, but once we got onto the ice they were surprisingly easy to get around on.

A lot of the glacier is “dirty” ice with all of the rock it is pushing down from the mountain, giving some of the views a very black and white look for one interesting effect, while other areas have brilliant whites and blues. (The blue is caused by denser ice, maybe one of you kind readers can explain why denser ice is blue, no one could go into that detail for us; PS Sweaty, a link to wikipedia doesn't count) The glacier is also immediately adjacent to a temperate rain forest, which is a pretty wild juxtaposition. We played around climbing through ice caves and tunnels and across the glacier for a while before heading back down to terra firma. A very cool experience altogether.

Tomorrow, we hit the road for the long drive to Abel Tasman, with a quick stop to see the Pancake Rocks. Catch you on the flip side!

Chris scales the upper parts of the terminal face

Sue is just chillin'

Chris is hangin' loose in the ice tunnel

Jen and Chris on the descent

Jen uses her crampons to dig in

Doug enjoys his ice safari

The look back at the glacier carved valley

Every time she goes into an ice cave, Sue looks this awesome

The gang takes a break at the top of our climb