The Brotzman Adventures -Day 4

Glacial Adventure

I woke early, earlier than intended, to the bright sunlight shining in through the window in the bathroom. It was spotlighting the alarm clock and I struggled to make out the time, the red digital letters, dimmed from the sun’s natural glow. I was extremely tired still, whether it was from the long driving the night before or an early wake up, I wasn’t sure. And then suddenly notes slowly faded into the room from the little hole in the top of the alarm. Now I was sure...my exhaustion was definitely due to the late night driving from the previous day. After finally getting myself out of bed, into the shower and dressed I allowed myself a step outside. What awaited me I could never have guessed.

I stood on our patio, and staring back at me was the Franz Josef glacier, the white ice sparkling in stark contrast to the bluest sky I’ve ever seen. My lungs were filled with the cool, moist morning air, reminding me of the dew from back home....except it was everywhere. Every car was blanketed in tiny droplets from bonnet to boot, but there had been no rain that night. The plants dripped fresh water off every petal, every leaf. We were officially in the rain forest. And right beside it stood a giant glacier: one of the rarest occurrences in nature throughout the entire world. We only hoped that we would have the opportunity to climb the thing.

Since we had such a difficult time finding accommodation the previous night, we weren’t too certain that we’d be able to reserve a spot on a glacial hike, let alone one that very morning. But our dear concierge (his name was Oscar by the way), the very same man that we had pissed off so very badly the night before, went to great lengths to get all three of us a reservation on the 10:30 3/4 day hike. (Oscar would continue to be amazing the remainder of our stay in Franz Josef when he gave us an amazing deal on rooms for the second night in a row; the question as to why he did all this will never be answered. But it does teach a very good lesson in holding grudges over petty occurrences.)

After we reserved our spots on the 10:30 hike, we went to breakfast at the Cheeky Kea, a place I had read about in my lonely planet...and a testament to just how small Franz is. I think everyone that lived there had breakfast there at some point between the hours of 8 and 11am. And after some food and a little bit of sunglass shopping for Dad, we headed off to the Okarito touring agency to begin our quest.

Things began with taking a number necklace and signing our name next to said number on a sheet of paper, along with giving a list of previous injuries and past medical history. The number was to be worn around our necks for the remainder of the trip. They TOLD us it was in order to make sure they got all of their equipment back. I suspect it was a sort of Dog tag in case we fell down a crevasse and they needed to identify us. Anyway, we entered the equpiment room where they issued us quite possibly the most uncomfortable boots I have ever walked on. It felt as though someone had strapped a wooden board to my foot, but first they put a really itchy, worn-out wool sock on my foot. Then they issued us our ice-talons or cramp-ons. These were given to us in a fannypack to wear around our waist. We still had to hike an hour before even getting to the ice, so there was no point in wearing the spikes on dry ground. Then we got our rain coats, and skipped the mittens and hats since it was a gorgeous day. Afterwards we went into the main lobby and met our guide, Troy.

Troy began the day by telling us, plain and simple, that if we failed to listen to him on the glacier we could die. Yes die. And we didn’t even have to sign a waiver. Nothing of the sort would have ever happened in the United States. Regardless, after our mini lecture on not dying we hopped on the bus and headed up towards the glacier. Ten minutes later we were there and on the move towards the ice.

Through forest and bush and up miniature hills then down...and we were spat out on the edge of what looked like a giant dried-up river bed. Come to find out, it was the basin that the glacier had dug out, and once the glacier receeded, all that was left was a huge expanse of rock and dirt. And there it was...the glacier. Standing right before us. And what an illusion it was. In reality, the thing was still 2 plus kilometers away from us...a good hour’s walk through a rocky desert (reminding me much of our ocean swim in Hawaii years ago...when the shoreline seemed so close but it was oh so very far away). We passed a few waterfalls along the way, which constrasted nicely against the barren stretch of land that passed through the center of two enormously lush hills...a sort of “red carpet” of nature, leading us to the main show.

When you’re really excited about something, it feels as though it will never come. As we walked along the dirt path, I was so impatient I wanted to burst. The heavy boots weighed me and the rest of the group down, and we trudged on, with determination, but slow speed. But then, before we knew it we were climbing under “restricted area” ropes and the dirt was beginning to have some ice in it. And then more ice...and less dirt. And finally Troy told us to sit down so we could put our ice talons on. What a brilliant creation those things are. He also told us the Maori legend about the glacier.

In short, a woman lived on the glacier and loved it..spending all her time climbing up and down it. Once she went down into the valley to get food or something and met a man, fell in love and decided to stay down there with him (so typical). Then one day they decided to go climb the glacier together (sounds like fun right?) and he fell into a crack and died because he sucked at climbing glaciers. Well, this broad was soooo sad that she cried and I guess someone froze her tears or something to keep the entire world from drowning. And that is probably so wrong it’s scary, but yeah. Why she’d want him back after he proved how un-manly he was at climbing glaciers I’ll never know.

And then we were off. The ice was so steep in places that Troy had to cut us steps in order to climb it. And the steps are continually melting and changing so he had to continue to cut into steps that had already been cut earlier that day. There were ropes to hang onto to prevent us from falling down cracks. Now, the thing that amazes me is that they were just ropes to HOLD ONTO. Not like we were clipped into a harness or anything. And oh, right to our left is a 100 meter drop that, incidentally, Troy doesn’t have a rope long enough to reach us if we plummet to our death. Darn. There were bridges, and little pools in the ice, weird formations and plenty of other tourists teeming like fleas on the back of a poor dog. Considering that the Franz Josef Glacier (and Fox glacier for that matter) move nearly 1-2 meters a day (most glaciers only move 1-2 meters a year), I was surprised that we weren’t thrown into oblivion or something. Ha.

We stopped for lunch half way into the day (nearly three hours), and munched on some food we had gotten at the Cheeky Kea. Despite how hot we had been while we were climbing, the wind picked up and with our butts sitting on the cold ice we quickly cooled and had to start putting on all the layers I had been dragging around the entire day. We got some pictures and then started heading back on up the glacier where things began to get very interesting. Blue ice caves, fantastic formations, smoother ice, cleaner ice. Many of the formations looked as though an ice-sculture had come to carve them specifically for the tourits. From time to time Troy would hack away at a peak of ice that looked ready to fall onto the walking path down below. We were all glad that the chunks he chopped off shattered directly onto the ice below nstead of onto our heads on our descent.

And then before we knew it, we were heading back down. Some of the same steep steps we had come up, we were now coming down. And in some places it was much harder...especially on my knees. We also had a very long wait while Troy and some other guides carved out a path in order to actually get us down. Strange to think that the path had changed so much that the path had disappeared. Or that they weren’t really sure which route we were going to take to get down.

And then, we were done. We were off the glacier...and despite the feelings of delirium that had set in, we were alive. We removed our ice-talors and were on our way back to the bus. My heels were split and killing me, my boots felt much heavier than they had on the way out and the ice talons were digging into my hip. But as we looked back at what we had accomplished, what my father and Karen had done at their ages (sorry guys I had to say it), I think we were all a bit proud. You see, they tell you before you go on the trip that if you can handle a 6 hour hike anywhere in the woods you can handle this. No. This is wrong and false and just...wrong. This was much much harder and more intense than any hike I’ve ever been on...even the ones when Craig had us lost and bush-whacking on the top of the Port Hills. First of all, if I ever fall on a hike, unless I’m like, hiking up a cliff which is really climbing, I don’t die or slide all the way back down or...die. And I don’t have to wear heavy-ass boots with spikes in the bottom to make sure I can actually walk. Anyway, you get my point. I think they need to be a bit more specific of the difficulty. Not that I would have passed this up...but what if I wasn’t sure of my fitness and they said “oh if you can walk for six hours you’ll be fine.” HA!

So we went back to the company...headquaters (i guess that’s what it’s called), handed in our stuff...and our numbers and said adios to the Okarito company and Troy. We went home, showered, and they quite appropriately when out to a fabulous dinner at the Blue Ice Cafe. Mmmm. I can say for certain that I slept well that night. And the next two days I would be as sore as if I had gone running for the first time in a year.

So if you ever come to NZ, please, if not for yourself, for me...climb the glaciers. They are the most amazing natural wonder I have ever seen up close. The most unique and simply stunning things to be on and feel and say that you were once a part of. So, if your fitness level is up to it....try it!!!

Oh and on this day in history I learned to purl...which is definitely more press-worthy making me wonder why on EARTH I bothered to tell you about all that glacier non-sense. What’s glacier-hiking compared to knitting??

-NMK

ps pics soooooon!