Franz Josef Glacier

Rainforest Retreat, Franz Josef, New Zealand- For most activities we have done on our trip, we have been able to book them the day before or even the day of, but one of the only ones we knew we had to book in advance was the Franz Josef Glacier Guides.  Like many other things we’ve gotten ourselves into we didn’t really know what to expect but just heard and read a lot of good things so were still excited even if we didn’t know exactly why we should be.

The one thing we did know was that hiking the glacier was supposed to be a pretty difficult task so most people would probably rest the day before…that didn’t fit into our tight schedule though.  On our last day in Queenstown we wanted to do one of the many hikes that take you into the surrounding hills/mountains near the town.  There are many to choose from and we picked the Queenstown Hill Summit track because it said ‘Medium difficulty’ and that it would only take 2-3 hours.  We soon found out that medium difficulty to people that live in mountains is much different than medium difficulty to two people that have lived in Wisconsin their whole lives.



A Nintendo mushroom we saw on the trail



The walking track was a lot of vertical and almost no flat but once we were committed we couldn’t turn back.  The reward of course was the view from the top of the hill where we could see all of the surrounding areas.  No rest though as the hike down is almost more difficult than up because of all the different muscles being used.  We were very glad we did the walk but also a little nervous it might not help us make it over ice walls the next day.

We made it to the top!  You can see Queenstown to the right of us

It took about 4.5 hours to drive from Queenstown to Franz Josef and started raining about 2 hours into that drive.  It has been almost 24 hours since we arrived and it has literally not stopped raining that entire time.  I have to say we have been extremely lucky with weather our entire trip.  Most days we’ve had activities planned have been all sun and warm with the rain being reserved for the days we’ve been driving or riding on a bus…really we couldn’t have been luckier.  Today was a reminder that everything is not always bright and sunny.

Apparently it rains a lot on the glacier so it was not out of the ordinary.  The Fran Josef Glacier Guides provide a full rain suit with pants, jacket, gloves, and hat…we would need all of them.  We were hoping the rain would lighten or even stop at some point during the 6 hours we were on the ice but it was a pretty steady driving rain, the kind that you can hardly look up in.  I guess that might have helped our focus though as we were walking on an enormous block of ice. 

Actually walking on the glacier was a lot more nerve-wracking than I expected.  When there is a lot of rain it washes away all the man made steps and paths the workers carve out before letting people walk on it so our guide had to carry an ice pick to help us make our way.  It is not a job I would want as he was constantly hammering away at the ice.  There were several times we had to cross very deep cracks where you knew you only had to step across a one foot space but just seeing how far down it was if you missed made you question if you were going to make it.  The coolest parts were probably squeezing through the cracks where ice would be over 20 ft. high on both sides of you and the path we were walking on was probably only a couple feet wide. 

The timing could not have worked out better to be exploring this glacier as we are thinking about starting our own glacier tour company on the Nechvatal Hancock Glacier conveniently located right outside the front door of the Hancock Hotel.  Our test guests Joni and Matt shared some pictures of their experience.  $20/person and you can do all the shoveling and snow removal you want (snowblower not included).  Seriously though, a big thank you to Joni, Matt, Uncle Gary, and our friendly neighbor for taking such good care of our house while we're gone!