Franz Joseph Glacier

At the Franz Joseph campground, chosen because it has a laundry room, we set up our tent with the great Mt. Cook hidden in the clouds as background. The view came out in the morning, and we climbed on a hill to see the snow from the point of view of palm trees.
We set out for the glacier, and hiked in, meeting up with a group of elder-hostelers whom McKinley befriended. The glacier itself was like those magnificent landmarks that you approach from afar -- at first they seem big, but then you get closer, and the size dwarfs your own imagination. This glacier glides down from the high peaks, all the way to the rainforests by the sea. It is both advancing and retreating, due to the vast snowfall in the winter.


from Wikipedia:

The Franz Josef is a glacier located in Westland National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Together with the Fox Glacier 20 km to the south it is a unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to just 200 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest. It was named after emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by the German explorer, Julius von Haast in 1865. The river emerging from the glacier terminal is known as the Waiho.

The glacier is currently 12 kilometres long and terminates 19 km from the Tasman Sea. The glacier exhibits a cyclic pattern of advance and retreat, driven by differences between the volume of meltwater at the foot of the glacier and volume of snowfall feeding the neve. Having retreated several kilometres between the 1940s and 1980s, the glacier entered an advancing phase in 1984 and at times has advanced at the phenomenal (by glacial standards) rate of 70 cm a day. The flow rate is about 10 times that of typical glaciers. Over the longer term, the glacier has retreated since the last ice age, and it is believed that it extended into the sea some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

This cyclic behaviour is well illustrated by a postage stamp issued in 1946, depicting the view from St James Anglican Church. The church was built in 1931, with a panoramic altar window to take advantage of its location. By 1954, the glacier had disappeared from view from the church, but it reappeared in 1997.

The Maori name for the glacier is Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere — the tears of Hinehukatere — arising from a legend: Hinehukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover, Tawe, to climb with her. An avalanche swept Tawe from the peaks to his death. Hinehukatere was broken hearted and her many, many tears froze to form the glacier.

The area surrounding both glaciers is designated a World Heritage Site.

McKinley loved the smooth glacial rock for climbing, and felt the sacred spirit of the glacier long before she set foot on its blue ice. It was a place of power, awesome power, that filled all of us with fear and deep respect.

hikers on the glacier