Treading on Thick Ice

Yesterday we drove to Fox Glacier (that’s the town name as well as the glacier name) and did an hour hike up to Fox Glacier and back down. We couldn’t get too close because some rock fall closed the trail, but it was still neat to look at. The pictures don’t do either of the glaciers we went to any justice, the glaciers are absolutely huge. The river at Fox Glacier was a color blue I’ve never seen before. Its caused by “glacial flour” which is formed when rocks are crushed up into tiny dust by the glacier then spit out the bottom into the river.

Fox Glacier

Awesome blue river

Yeah not really sure what that sign means....

But that one I get.

After our hike we came back to camp, made dinner and headed down the street to Fox Glacier Hotel (pretty much everything in this no-stoplight town is named Fox Glacier something – ie: Fox Glacier General Store) for the Southwest Speed Sheep Shearing competition. The competition is a big deal because it only happens one a year and the location of the competition rotates between 5 southwest towns. So everyone from Fox Glacier and neighboring Franz Josef Glacier came out for it. We sat on the floor in the front row (can’t say I had ever sat on the floor of a bar before) and watched the competition. I was rethinking wearing wool after seeing how cut up and bloody the sheep get then I realized we were watching the amateurs. The professionals still occasionally cut the sheep but not as bad. The winner sheared a sheep in 26 seconds, pretty amazing.

This girl sheared one in normal clothes!

The oldest contestant...82 years old!

This morning we drove to the town of Franz Josef Glacier and got ready for our glacier hike! We did a halfday hike which was from 10:30 to 3:30 with 2 hours spent on the ice. That was plenty of time on the ice with our heavy boots, super glad we didn’t do a whole day hike. After getting our socks, boots and jackets on we took a short bus ride to the glacier path. We hiked for about an hour through rocky stream beds and rainforest before finally reaching the terminal face of the glacier. The walk was about 2.5 kilometers. The glacier is so big and steep that it gives an optical illusion of being closer than it is. When we were close to it be put our crampons on which are spikes that go on the bottom of our boots to stick into the ice. Using a carved out ice staircase and hand rope we started to climb. We hiked around the ice for a couple of hours, ate lunch on a rocky part and hiked down. The pictures really don’t do it justice, the glacier was HUGE but I hope you enjoy the pictures anyway. The glacier is so pretty, especially in the blue ice parts. I was “that girl” and asked our guide about a million questions all day long. Just wanted to make sure I knew everything possible about the glacier since a) I’ve never seen one before and b) Ill probably never hike on one again!

Still 2 km from the glacier...looks closer though!

Sign we walked right by...

Putting our crampons on

Ice stairs

The hike was awesome but I was darn happy to take the boots off. The blisters are well worth it though. After the hike we drove back to Fox Glacier to stay the night. In the morning we are going to Lake Matheson which is really still and you can see the reflection of the snow capped mountains in it, so Ill be posting more gorgeous pictures soon! In the meantime enjoy these!