Hiking on the Franz Josef Glacier

Hiking the Franz Josef Glacier was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Its hard to pick a favorite activity considering so many of them were new experiences... both scary and exhilirating.

But really, how many times do you get to hike on a glacier...in shorts....with a backdrop of waterfalls?

We booked the the hike with Franz Josef Glacier Guides. They have several options and supply you with shoes, pants (if its needed) and coats as well as crampons. B was very excited and proud that we already had what we needed so we used all of our own stuff, with the exception being crampons. Crampons is a weird word.

All of these pictures are SOOC, straight out of camera.

Here you see the glacier ahead of us. Thats 1.8 miles before we hit the glacier base.

We waited in line as we all crossed the stream on these rocks. Did I mention B hates walking? He really isn't fond of hiking either. This is why I booked the half day excursion and not the full day. This will become apparent later in the post.

There are basically piles of these rocks from here to the glacier. This is what we are walking on majority of the time. I thought they were quite pretty. Many of them had a metallic sheen that I had to continually photograph.

This is where we stopped before pressing forward. You cannot go past this without a guide.

I should mention that before this the large group broke into 5 smaller groups according to physical fitness. Our guide said those who consider themselves very fit and would like to go at a faster pace as well as do some trail maintenance should be in group 1.

B looked over and said "So we'll go in group 1?" and I do remember saying sure and sort of shrugging.

Then I contemplated the repercussions of my thoughtless actions.

How adorable is the girl in front of me. Not a single love handle or roll of back fat to be seen.

I started to get a little weary. I had to focus. Thats the trick to things that make you nervous. This ladder was odd because you are sort of crawling up it. It was worse going down with crampons on.

These are crampons! They basically attach to your shoes so you don't slip and fall and slide off the glacier and take out your fellow hikers.

Apparently being in group 1 and doing trail maintenance means that our guide checks the trail and screws in the anchors so we don't plummet to our death.

I don't really want to plummet to my death.

I'm such a wimp.

Then he checks the first set of stairs. He told us that anyone who was nervous should come up front so he could help them up. Of course, we were in the very back so I told B that he had better make sure I don't do something stupid and hurt myself.

Thats a much harder job than you might think.

We weren't allowed to take pictures while going up these stairs. Thats fine because I was far too busy focusing on just the stair in front of me. I was careful not to look back down.

Occasionally we would stop and the guide would tell us a bit about the glacier and its history.

He also told us that the trail we were walking on was man made. Basically, its a huge crevasse and they chip ice into it until it stops up and then freezes over night. Then they test to make sure its stable to walk on.

This whole time I thought that they were saying crevice with an accent, pronouncing it crevasse. But really crevice and crevasse are two different words.

Vocabulary fail.

The problem is that once you are on the glacier you feel like things are fairly stable and you get comfortable.

Until your guide points to this and repeats several times that we should not step on it. We must step OVER it because if we step ON it he's "not sure how far you'll fall".

At this point I temporarily forgot how to take large steps. I bought myself some time by taking a picture.

B is loving this hike and is thinking that I am the bestest wife evah for having planned out such a totally superb honeymoon.

Stunning. Ice, trees, blue skies.

This is what they use to poke thru the snow/ice and see if we'll fall thru when we step on it.

We found out here that the glacier doesn't go all the way down to the ground. Under the glacier is a river of water that flows down the valley.

I wonder if they tell this to groups 2-5?

More stairs. Don't fall off the side.

Actually the problem with these stairs is that they are high. I'm 4'11" and my legs are approximately 5 inches long. The gentleman in front of us is looking back at me because he just took a really big step to get up there.

I'm giggling.

He reached back, grabbed my hand and hoisted me up. Good man.

I call this piece:

Death on a Glacier

This is our final destination (I really could have kept on going). See me with my pick? I could totally use that thing. ~snort~

B is drinking some fresh glacial water.

Oh B, why must you stand so close to the edge?

This is what keeps us from falling down the stairs.

Its amazing how tempting it is to go up and look inside the crevasse. The blue ice is a result of the ice being compacted until all the air bubbles are squeezed out. Then light hits the ice and the light is absorbed at the red end of the spectrum resulting in us seeing the blue (less absorbed) color only.

I think.

I would do this again in a heart beat.

Even if we could occasionally hear and or see rocks and ice falling near the glaciers edge.

Its like another world. I can hardly believe that the day before we were at the beach and the day before that we were kayaking in a lake.

Did you know the guides train for 6-8 months to be able to cut these stairs?

We reluctantly headed back.

As we were climbing back down the ladder we heard a loud boom.

See that chunk of ice in the water? If you look closely you can see the splashing from debris hitting the river.

That piece of ice weighs several tons.

Chunks of ice were bobbing in the water. The river is grey because the water is picking up "rock flour". Its dust from the rock valley wall washing away.

At this point B is over it. That glacial high has faded. We left on this excursion 4 hours ago and he wants to be back on the shuttle.

Did I mention he hates walking? 1.8 miles back.

We passed gorgeous waterfalls again.

I stopped to take pictures of rock and metallic sand but B was too far ahead.

The man was on a mission. Visions of dinner danced in his head.

I'm serious. He didn't even wait to cross the stream nicely. The man just stomped right through it.

He was totally over it. Probably how you feel if you made it this far into the post.

We ended this incredible day with dinner at The Canopy Restaurant and a soak in the outdoor hot pools surrounded by lush rainforest.

If you didn't get enough and you feel like more you can check out our album here:

(the first couple are repeats of the post but there are quite a bit more of the glacier itself)