mouth of the cave was massive, and looked so sketchy! house sized
hunks of ice looking like they were ready to fall at any moment. the
guides said that the cave actually does collapse in varying degrees
every few years, stopping up the river, creating water dams inside the
glacier that explode, changing the landscape of the glacier itself.
the dirt covered ice to the right side wasn't there 5 years ago when
heather came to the glacier last. it was formed from a massive river
explosion a few years ago. so crazy to think about how rapidly the big
ice flow can change! the franz Josef glacier is generally in a
retreating mode (in different places of the glacier, it can be up to
10 meters a day)... but based on the snow pack at the top, and the
melt at the bottom, it varies quite significantly year to year. at the
turn of the century, it filled half the valley we hiked across, and in
the 70's it retreated half way up the valley you are looking at.
heather was quite amazed at how different it was in a mere 5 years.
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