May 22, 2010
I started writing 3 different entries. It’s difficult to catch up and there’s a lot to say. I feel like I’ve been heavy on the nature entries and speaking very little of my state of affairs—of which there are new developments. My thoughts and photos for the following entry are the most clear so I’m posting it first. The rest will follow shortly. All in due time I guess.
The existence of the myriad of fascinating attractions in New Zealand can be directly attributed to the collage of microclimates. The intersection of ecological islands creates unique Ven-diagramatic overlaps seen almost nowhere else in the world. For example, it would not be surprising to see rainforest on a subtropical island. Nor would it be remarkable to see a string of glaciers along a mountain range. Where the temperate rainforests of the West Coast meet the skyward peaks of the Fiordlands, one can find the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. These glacial specimens are remarkable for being 2 of the 3 fastest moving and lowest altitude glaciers in the world (the third is in Argentina). At their termini, they are less than 1000’ above sea level where the local temperature is rarely below 45 degrees. With lengths ranging from 12-15 km and up to 3 km wide, they stand out among the neighboring valleys of tangled green foliage. The West Coast of the South Island is also known as the “Wet Coast”. It rains here. A lot. Constantly. I’ve been here for 8 days (more to come on the West Coast in another post) and only 2 days haven’t featured measurable rainfall. The Southern Alps mountain range juts out of the land almost within a stone’s throw of the ocean and rises several thousand feet. Hot air from Australia meets the Tasman Sea and picks up moisture by the bucketful. All of that saturated air slams into the Southern Alps, wringing out moisture out like from a sponge. The string of tiny towns along the main West Coast motorway all receive in the ballpark of 10’ of annual rainfall. In the foothills it’s easily 50% more. In the upper valleys the rainfall can average upward of 25’. In the highest valleys—like the one at the Franz Josef Glacier—precipitation is usually in the form of snow and that can measure 125’ every year. 125’ of snowfall, annually, is a remarkable amount of snow. As it accumulates, it compresses and entrapped air is forced out and the snow turns to ice. Hence, a glacier is fed. Being a steep valley, the accumulating snow and ice of the Franz Josef Glacier slides down the rock face, pushed down by the weight of even more frozen water above. Ever present pressure etches deeper and deeper chasms in the rock and grinds house-sized boulders into fine silt over thousands of years. The glacial bed beyond the lowest reaches of ice is traced by a single stream of milky runoff but the whole valley looks like a river bed immediately after a flash flood or the swath of destruction left by a pyroclastic flow. Boulders, rocks and pebbles are cemented into place by an ashen grey silty-sand.
Walking more than a mile and a half to the base of the glacier, not a single footprint was left in the sand even though everything looked wet and saturated. I was part of a guided group of 33 on an all day hike up and through the glacier. We marched in a line, 33 pairs of rented Gore-tex pants making identical zush zush zush sounds as we worked our way up the valley. Originally, I tried to sign up for ice climbing. Both the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers are world heritage sites and protected areas owned by the government and leased to private companies for tour purposes. The glaciers are nearly identical and only 20 km apart so the prices to explore were very similar. Unfortunately for me, no else signed up for ice climbing at either spot so I was given the option the morning of to push back my reservation indefinitely until others signed up for the ice climb or to join the all day hike. Due to the impending storms, I chose the hike but it turned out to be a great decision.
At the foot of the glacier, our group of 33 young hikers (the oldest was probably 35 but most were in their early 20s) was split into 3 groups. I was quick to join the lead group as we were promised the most adventurous tour. Our guide, Ryan, was a nimble and diminutive English ginger of unknown age and boundless energy. Under his direction we affixed crampons—metal spikes—to our boots and transitioned from the rocky path to dirty ice.
The lower reaches of the glacier were smooth and easily passable like a rolling hill. The ice was covered with silt and grit and generally unremarkable to anyone who has been skiing or snowboarding. We had no fixed destination and due to the estimated 3-8’ of daily movement of the glacier, we couldn’t follow the path of the prior day’s tour. Ryan was only aiming for interesting sights and passable terrain. As we worked our way a couple hundred yards up the ice, the field began to show signs of stress. Small crevasses and ridges stood out in relief. No longer covered in dirt, the surface ice gleamed white in the midday sun and often was covered in adjacent dimples a couple of inches in diameter. Further up the slope, the ice buckled even more dramatically. Indeterminately deep fissures and precariously thin ridges dictated our route. We walked in the lowest available path to avoid the instability of the melting ridges but that also meant we were inundated by the petty drops and incessant trickles of melt water heeding gravity. It took no time at all to realize why we were all issued waterproof over-gear. The glacier seemed unconquerably huge and yet it was being attacked by the sun and undermined from below on a daily basis. On a clear day like ours, it was easy to see how the glacier could recede but seemed impossible to imagine its cyclical advances.
Ryan’s lead was marked by excited chirps and deft swings of a pick axe used to cut rudimentary steps into shelves so we all scrambled up single file. We wedged through narrow canyons tens of feet deep but only a few inches wide. Through many of them we had to shuffle step, unable to face our hips forward or wear backpacks on both shoulders. He also managed to find us a few tight caves to crawl through. One of which was so small that dropping in feet first, I couldn’t get past my thighs. The adventurous girls and smaller guys managed to get in but required a hand to pull them out of the even tighter exit. This was not an experience for the claustrophobic, the fat or the fat and claustrophobic.
Everywhere around us was ice but it was hardly uniform. Pockets of hail-like ice balls were sandwiched next to layers of perfectly clear ice and next to that might be a sliver of void. In the deeper recesses we encountered beautiful blue ice—nature’s stained glass window. Sunlight diffused through the ice such that illumination was everywhere but seemed to have no source. The scenery was brilliant and intoxicating and even looking away from the ice we were treated to shear rock faces thousands of feet tall, striped with minor waterfalls.
We hiked and climbed for almost 6 hours but it wasn’t until we were off the glacier that we finally felt fatigue. At one point, on our way back down the glacier, we spotted a half day ice climbing excursion working on some of the 30’ vertical faces. It looked fun, but not nearly as much fun as the hike we had just finished. I got lucky that no one else wanted to do the ice climb, and 5 minutes after getting back to the bus, it started pouring rain again and didn’t let up for 4 days.
