Ice Elated

This area is not very inhabited and borders on a rustic coast on the west mountains just east.  There are several points of interest on the way to Queenstown.  There are two glaciers Franz Josef Glacier (named after the King of Austria) and Fox Glacier.  I opted to go to Franz Josef.  On the way there I stopped late to sleep in a small town and did not want to pay for whatever they were asking for a hotel room.

I was steered toward a Youth Hostel and my slumming experience began.  As I mentioned before there is a whole slew of young people traveling around New Zealand.  The places that I am traveling to are pretty much a circuit.  Young people in their twenties and thirties are primarily from Germany, US, Israel, Holland and some French.  They travel in cars, rent small vans, hitchhike or can buy a pass on the Magic Bus, which goes from place to place and is a hop on hop off type thing. 

This hostel that I stayed at had a whole contingent of Magic Bus Travelers.  I took a single room that had a high ceiling and was not too bad.  Just down the hall was a TV room with about twenty kids in sleeping bags watching a movie.  Although I had my own room, you share shower and toilet.  I survived my night there and throughout the rest of the trip, a hostel was always an option.

When I got to the town of Franz Josef I opted at staying at a hostel too.  Each hostel is different and this one had adjoining cabins that were like ski chalets.  I had a shared cabin so I had my own room and shared a common area and bathroom with  one other person.  The other person did not show up so I had it to myself.  I loved that place.  It had a lot of character and felt like I was in a ski resort town in the 60s.

The next day I was primed to climb the glacier.  I took the expedition around 12:30 PM.  There are around 40 on the trip and that equip you with gear including jackets, pants, socks, boots and clampons.  I kept thinking they were saying tampons.

They put you all on a bus for mourned ten minutes and then  you hike in the woods uphill, at a fast paste for around twenty minutes.  You then arrive at a clearing en route to the base of the glacier. 

This was not an easy trip and it probably took around an hour and a half before you actually came to any ice.  The glacier is around 20,000 years old and is from the ice age.  It is not that very high up as far as elevation goes.  The reason the ice has stayed so long, is that the gorge it is in has compacted it.  The compacted ice also gives it its blue color.  There is a prism effect occurs that makes it so blue.

This was one of those once in a lifetime experiences.  To top it off as part of the deal, we got a free ticket to the town hot p

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ools, which felt great after the hike.