Have you ever walked on a glacier? Well I have, on the Franz Josef Glacier in the south island of
While we were riding in our car to the glacier, I was thinking about how many of my friends would have been allowed to walk on one. I saw heaps of awesome pictures of what the glacier looked like. When we were parked, I saw the glacier and I started feeling nervous because I thought I would fall through the ice and die. Our tour guide, Ian, showed us what clothing they supplied for us. We had to wear two layers of waterproof socks, really heavy boots and a raincoat. Once all that clothing was on, we had to wear a fannypack to hold our ice talons. You put them on the bottom of your boots and strap the laces together so you don’t slip and slide on the ice. The group then hopped on a bus to ride to the glacier parking lot. We had to walk one hour to the terminal face of the glacier. The terminal face is the foot of the glacier.
On the walk, Ian stopped us and told us some facts about the Franz Josef glacier. The glacier is currently 12 kms long and terminates 19 kms from the
We walked the rest of the way to the glacier to begin our hike up. We had to cross the shallow streams by stepping on stones which was fun. Most of the time I was at the head of the pack. When we got to the glacier, Ian stopped and told us to put on the ice talons and showed us how to put them on. We split into two groups and we went with a new tour guide named James. He took the side of the group that wanted to go slower. James had a tool called an ice pick to carve steps into the ice to make it easier to walk up and down. When we came to a steep part you have to bend your knees and keep your toes pointed forward. After a couple of hours of hiking around the enormous ice chunks, we stopped at a flat spot to have lunch. My mom packed yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and an apple. From our lunch spot it was the most beautiful view I had seen. Our guide said I was the youngest he had ever taken up on the ice. I was proud of myself so far.
When we started to head down I was the first one up and ready. Going down still scared me because I thought I would slip. As soon as we were at the bottom of the glacier I was relieved that it was over. I was shaking because I was still nervous. James told us to take off our ice talons and put them back into their pouch. We had another hour walk to the bus! The group started walking back to the parking lot. Everybody was quiet because they were so tired.
Back at the information/ticket building it felt good to take off the heavy boots and wet socks. Since I was so well behaved on the challenging, chilly, wet hike my nice parents bought me a silver paua (powa) shell necklace.
At the end of the day I thought to myself “I can’t wait to tell my friends I walked on a GIANT ice cube!”
Claire