I have just finished a full day hike up Franz Josef (I've realised it's spelt like this). It was an amazing experience. We hiked for 12 kilometres, and it was pretty hard - much harder than I imagined. Fortunately we had a nice day, we're surrounded by rain forest here - a Glacier in the middle of rain forest, it's nuts - so it rains a lot, but generally it was pretty good. The whole thing was exhausting.
Surprisingly they don't have a route planned, the guides just get there and decide which way they want to go. They have pic axes so they can carve steps in the ice for us to walk up or down, and they attach ropes to the steeper slopes. We had crampons attached to our boots which made walking on ice easy enough, although it was strenuous and at times we walked along a narrow ridge with sheer drops on either side.
One girl slipped and pierced one leg with the crampon spikes from her other boot, ouch. I had originally planned to kayak here but when I realised the Chile trip does not include an actual glacier hike - there are three sub-tropical glaciers, two here in NZ and one in southern Chile - I decided I better take the opportunity here.
New Zealand has been unbelievable, but expensive when you add up the costs of all the activities. I have a bungy either tomorrow or the day after in Queenstown, and then a trip to Milford Sounds, then I'll head to the easy coast and back north to Christchurch. Can't believe I'll be in South America in little over a week, the trips going so fast!
Surprisingly they don't have a route planned, the guides just get there and decide which way they want to go. They have pic axes so they can carve steps in the ice for us to walk up or down, and they attach ropes to the steeper slopes. We had crampons attached to our boots which made walking on ice easy enough, although it was strenuous and at times we walked along a narrow ridge with sheer drops on either side.
One girl slipped and pierced one leg with the crampon spikes from her other boot, ouch. I had originally planned to kayak here but when I realised the Chile trip does not include an actual glacier hike - there are three sub-tropical glaciers, two here in NZ and one in southern Chile - I decided I better take the opportunity here.
New Zealand has been unbelievable, but expensive when you add up the costs of all the activities. I have a bungy either tomorrow or the day after in Queenstown, and then a trip to Milford Sounds, then I'll head to the easy coast and back north to Christchurch. Can't believe I'll be in South America in little over a week, the trips going so fast!
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