Gettin Glacial II

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And it was indeed a glacial kind of day. That meaning I was standing on a massive block of ice and it was frickin cold! Alright, alright…i’ll stop complaining…i was after all…hiking on a glacier…which, ya…is pretty sweet. And before you get all excited about the shorts thing…just be patient…I’ll get to that…promise. So after a couple days in Fox glacier village (which is really all the time anyone should spend there) I once again boarded the bus for the ride over 2 mountainsides and arrived in Franz Josef (named for the Austrian emperor) glacier village. A hint bigger than Fox, Franz had a similar feel…a restless little place where the only trade is selling beds, selling food, selling alcohol and selling guided trips up onto the glacier. And what a generous soul I was…I contributed to each one of these. I had heard that the Franz Josef glacier was the one to shell out the money and attempt a full-day hike on…so I was very excited to arrive and book my trip. You can do various hikse around the glacier and right up near the terminal face (love that term) on your own, but in order to actually crampon across the thing you needed to follow in line behind a woman and/or man wielding an ice axe and the rest of the frozen tourists up for the challenge.

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My original plan was to be on this thing on Christmas day…happily skipping around in glorious sunshine singing songs like “we wish you a glacial Christmas! We wish you a glacial Christmas!” and perhaps donning a santa hat just for good measure. Well…turns out they don’t guide on Christmas which is fair enough. Everyone deserves a day away from whiny tourists asking the same questions over and over again “soo…you’ve got yerself a pretty big ice block here eh? And they say the planet’s warming…psshh. “right sir, you actually put those crampons on with the spikes pointed up…yep…just like that…. won’t come off now.” So I figured the day after Christmas sounded perfect. When I went to check into the hostel I noticed a sign for “work-exchange” and my eyes lit-up. I was quickly and steadily coming to the last lonely dollars in my bank account and this was all too appealing. You work for a few hours and in exchange get free laundry (I was also coming to my last lonely pair of underwear) and free accommodation. And with this “opportunity” I suddenly had my first job after receiving my college diploma. Maid service! Ahh…those Hamilton dollars sure paid off. Haha. and the hostel’s name:…Château Franz. Should I even go into this one? Chateau? Chateau! at least this fancy name made me feel a bit better about the cleaning job. another perk was that they provided free vegetarian soup every night for the guests and free popcorn. Of course that soup came back to haunt me when I had to clean a caldron big enough to fit a small child into. All of this ramble is just to explain that work-exchange forced me to push my glacier hike a day later…so as it turned out…the two days that bookended my miserable hike were radiantly sunny and beautiful. People were coming back from this thing with tan-lines and enough pictures to catalogue them into various stages of the day. Buut what can you do? Tell the miserable story of course!

it was early...haha
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Luckily I did have the motivation to hike on one of these glorious days myself and took a route to the glacier that I gathered not many do. Since most people just sign up for the glacier hike, hop on the bus and return at the end of the day, it seemed that no one really sticks around for other hikes to the glacier..i mean…they’ve already seen it, been on it…what’s more to do? Well since I had the extra time and I like to explore everything I can in a place I noticed a spattering of trails around the glacier and inquired. I was soon off with a day pack and scampering along the way to the glacier. Went through rainforest and masses of green moss, over rocks, through mud, muck and water…the last three teaming up to nearly remove my shoes a couple of times. Trying to avoid the gooey muck I quickly made my way along the trail…crossed a few “creeks” at which I would stand to one side and think “right…if I go this way I’ll only get wet up to my knee…here to my ankle…and oh! Here’s a possible dry route…just don’t slip…” I continued for a while along the river that comes out of the Franz glacier (though I still couldn’t see the thing) and then cut back into the forest before coming to the last bridge (lovely inventions they are), hiked up another little hill and arrived at Peter’s Pool…a serene little reflective pond, where I met all the tourists who had driven to the area walked 5 minutes to the same place, to catch the sight of the glacier impressively showing off it’s grandeur. Seemingly still, inconspicuously active it constantly advances and retreats. This looked much bigger than Fox and I couldn’t wait to be climbing on it the next day. Still full of energy I set off for another little hike before retreating back to the “chateau” for more free soup.

waves of ice (sorry the picture is sideways...)
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And I must add that even though I come from Christmases full of summery southern California weather, I’ve never actually had a Christmas in summer and man did that feel weird. Even leading up to it…I just never felt like we were in the holiday season…and it probably didn’t help that I’ve never been away for the santa claus, consumerist extravaganza…but it just didn’t feel right. Either way…I was in new Zealand for christmas celebrating with a barbeque set up for the 5 or 6 surrounding hostels in the area…was a bizarre day I must say….my journal is just filled with sappy sadness of being away from my family and boring, repeated conversations with other travellers. Enough of that though…here’s nature’s gloom!

gettin back in line!
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The next day when I awoke it was to a gloomy, ominous sky…but the possibility for a clear day didn’t seem to far-fetched. Maybe I was being too optimistic. At the guide center we suited up with gear and I reluctantly slid my feet into soaking wet boots. I inquired whether a dry pair might be possible but the woman informed me they’re all that wet and would probably be wetter once we were out there. Fair enough….i didn’t want to be one of the wimpy, whiny tourists. But I soon learned on our first trek across scores of boulders just to reach the terminal face that I seemed to be the only one with uncomfortably soggy and already cold feet (not to mention that I always have cold feet…it’ll be the middle of summer and I’m putting on socks…so I knew this was going to be a test of will). And for all the comments I received as to the shorts I was sporting in all of my photos. Yes…I was wearing my little workout shorts on a glacier…but allow me to explain once and for all. And further maintain that I was not sadistically testing myself, proving anything, or having a mental breakdown due to hypothermia or the like. It wasn’t raining at this point…not cold at all and I knew that most people wear shorts and a t-shirt, hats, sunglasses and a generous amount of sunscreen because the sun reflection off the ice is so intense. and after we hiked up to the glacier the guides informed us that if we were warm now we should shed a few layers because we were going to start hiking upwards…and since I’ve always preferred walking in shorts and also because the pants they provided were so baggy I probably would have ended up tangling myself in the extra fabric impeding every step, I quickly took those off.

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I must also note that both guides were wearing shorts...and i figure they’re on this thing every day…they know the appropriate attire. So the crampons are attached to the boots and now we’re heading onto the ice! But what I was completely unaware of is the sloth pace you follow. Because the guide has to constantly be checking the path (please do! I’m not in the mood to fall to an icy death thank you) and creates steps, and fill in any holes by hacking away at the ice, it is a lot of walk, walk, hike, hike, STOP…waaaaaaaaait. Walk, walk….STOP….waaaaait. it was still really cool to be hiking on a glacier but with that amount of people and the worsening conditions, the wait time turned from a nice time to rest and look around at the spectacular surroundings, to a hypothermia inducing death march …a countdown to which toes I would still be able to move in the next half hour. How long are we up here for?? It was so unfortunate that my mind went in this direction but I was not the only one. I’m generally a positive person but the frost was nipping at my patience and stamina. The rain pelted down…and the wind began to blow so the rainy sleet horizontally greeted us. we were constantly wringing out our gloves, and the desire to take a picture came down to a memory saved vs. pain decision. Even if I did choose to expose my hands could I trust my fumbling fingers to successfully execute the necessary motor skills? (…when we got off the glacier I couldn’t actually unzip my pack without concentrating every ounce of energy to my helplessly frozen fingertips). so no…I didn’t have pants on …but really my legs weren’t cold…my core wsn’t cold…hands and feet? Miserable, awful, frozen and unhappy. At one point i figured I’d just put the pants on to get extra warmth…but with the crampons it was impossible.. Remember when I mentioned those whiny tourists?? Well…I did my best to keep my frozen pain to myself but it was getting all but unbearable. Luckily another man had also received wet boots to begin with (damn those wet boots!), was there to jokingly commiserate with.

smile and try not to look miserable!
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And I did feel quite a bit better when we were finally on our way back to the warm, steamy bus, chatting with the guides and I overheard him say to another guide “my hands are seriously frozen…holy shit…that’s the coldest day I’ve had up there”. So ya…it was chilly…and unexpectedly so. So there ya have it But what I really want is for you to at least have a chuckle at my expense…that’s what these times are always good for…and I must revert back to my statement before: no matter how cold and unfortunate the weather was, I can’t say it wasn’t a unique experience and I’m glad I had it…how often do you get to scramble all over a glacier. Being up there was indeed like being on another planet. You just look out and see waves of frozen ice…ice moguls, crevices created a grid-like pattern that you wouldn’t want to get caught between. Little rivers swirling all around so that sometimes you go to take a step and think “jeez it sounds like there’s a waterfall right under my feet!” look down into the little hole, see some rushing water and realize there probably is a waterfall under there. And the ice really does get that blue color…which is fascinatingly extraordinary. At one point we were waiting for a while in between a narrow crevice…just huge ice walls on both sides…pretty neat. And when I wasn’t mumbling “F*@#! my feet are cold!” I was wowing at the ice field we were climbing. So I did enjoy it…just in that freezing-my-ass-off kinda way. And somewhere after this time I got some weird blister things on my feet…probably from wearing wet socks shifting and slipping around in used boots moulded to the feet of about 1000 different people….but I can’t lie that for a few days i was half panickily convinced that I had frostbite…haha. On our hike back across the valley another crew of hikers were just setting off towards the glacier…and as I looked at their soggy appearances I just thought “poor souls” but they all looked perky and ready to go (probably didn’t start with wet boots…grrrr). But let me say that dry clothing, and warm feet (although I think this took a couple of hours) have never felt better…and what else was waiting for me but some nice, free vegetarian soup (3 days in a row?)!…Franz wasn’t so bad….