Walking on ice

The west coast of NZ gets pummeled with rain every year. I can't remember the exact amount of rainfall but its a lot because the mountains block the clouds and it all drops on the west coast. In higher elevations it obviously falls as snow and in certain sections of the mountain glaciers form. Someone told me there are 4,000 glaciers in NZ and it seems like all of the valleys and most lakes were formed by glaciers during the ice age.

Anyway, there are 2 extremely famous glaciers on the west coast that have developed tourist towns around them, the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The Fox glacier is slightly longer but less steep so the Franz Josef Glacier tends to get more attention because it is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. A glacier forms when a lot of snow becomes compacted and turns into ice, the steepness of the terrain then makes the ice slide down the mountain in an "ice river" essentially. This is what carves out the valleys and lakes of the area. It might not sound too exciting, but the Franz Josef glacier moves at about 4-5 feet per day. This might not seem like a lot, but in terms of glacial movement that is nearly light speed.

The glacier is a spectacular sight to see. It's enormous, 12km long and half a mile deep in some points of pure ice. To walk on it you need special boots and crampons (spikes) to grip the ice. Most people opted to go on a glacier walk for the day but I decided to go ice climbing on it instead. The walk up the glacier was beautiful. Once you get above the terminal face of the glacier where all of the debris is spit back out you get to perfectly clean blue ice with ice caves, tunnels and deep crevices. There were some crystal clear glacial water pools with delicious water.

When we got to the wall we were going to climb we fixed up our harnesses and ice axes and went at it. Ice climbing is very different from rock climbing, more technical compared to the brute strength required to scale a rock wall. It is also very exhausting and puts a tremendous strain on your calf muscles that burned for days. We were climbing a 30-50 foot wall that ranged from an extremely steep slope, to vertical, and even invert in some spots. It was tough going but I had a ton of fun, I mean, how often do you get to play with razor sharp ice axes?