wonder world!

Monday, February 22, 2010

franz Josef to wanaka...

since we decided to postpone our glacier hike by a day, we got back
from the hike and had to jump right intothe car for the 4+ hour drive
down to wanaka. so glad we decided to hit the glacier on the day
without rain tho! luckily it was a gorgeous drive. saturated from the
satcom the glacier, heather and I just took in the scenery from the
car, with a few stops along the wAy for some quick pics.

heading south, after clearing the mountains that house the franz Josef
and fox glaciers, we popped back out to the coast and came upon this
beach with all sorts of natural sculptures made of driftwood and
rocks. went as far as the eye could see in both directions, and seems
like most folks passing by add a little something to the beach.

final descent

after a full day of hiking (at least 4-5 hours on the glacier), we
made our way back to solid ground. it was an amazing hike and
education. spent most of the day with my jaw dropped in awe of our
surroundings! unforgettable experience.

tip of the dirt pile looking back on valley

we had to wait a few minutes on top of the dirt as each group needed
space to descend the steep hill one by one. great spot to sit and
absorb a little bit before returning to earth... :)

made it off the ice... still need to descend the dirt pile

patches of sun above and below us

starting to come down...

looking up the glacier at the dirt triangle I pointed out in one of
the first pictures. at the highest point, we were just up to the left
side of the triangle.

ice climbers

the guide company also runs day long ice climbing trips (Tony little
specs of people in middle of picture)... definitely doing that if I
make it back some day!

coming out the bottom!

the tunnel was a lot longer than I had expected, with curves, bumps
and drops along the way. got a bit wet, but totally worth it!

heather climbing into the ice tunnel

our group lucked out and were allowed to slide through a tunnel cut
out if the ice by water. the guide had set a rope inside, and one by
one we slid (bumping and grinding reallly) through the tunnel!

looking back into the valley from behind ice waves

I was pretty surprised how far up onto the glacier our group wandered.
our guide was a little surprised as well.

ice "waves"

making our way through the ice waves

moving upwArd, we zigzagged through the ice fields that had an overall
formation that looked like giant waves.

glowing blue

our guide gave us a good talk about the blue appearance of the ice.
has to do with light rays being bent a distorted in the ice crystals,
and all that reflects back is the blue. she was super funny in
breaking off pieces of the ice, and making sure that we were aware
that the ice itself is not really blue, just appears that way in
context of the glacier. good thing too cuz I was secretly hatching a
plan on how I was going to bring a hunk of blue NZ ice home. j/k. ha.
I can only imagine the range of off the wall questions the guides have
to answer.

looking back...

the surface of the ice looked like a fairly level incline looking up,
but when you looked back you could see that it was a series of
fractured mounds. see the dude standing on the far side of the chasm?
again. puts the scale in perspective.

continuing up

we ultimately hike up to the dirt triangle area in the center of the
picture. a lot farther than it looks!

hiking through the blue ice

our journey up the glacier led us through a couple of tight spots! the
ice was also freshly "cleaned" in the rain over the previous two days,
so it was super bright and blue.