Climb Every Mountain . . .
I woke up this morning with slight butterflies and the dreary weather outside didn't help my confidence much when I thought about what I was about to do with my day, but I felt rested and raring to go otherwise so I slowly made myself a cup of coffee, packed up a lunch, prepped my water bottle with 1/2 powerade and 1/2 water, put on a tank, 2 longsleeve lightweight t's, my workout capris, and "a jumper" (zip-up) and headed out in the pouring rain to the Franz Josef Glacier Hike station.
The girl at the counter was friendly and smiling and immediately eased my nerves. She walked me through all the gear they'd provide us with "to make us very comfortable even in the rain" and a half an our later there we all were- with blue gortex raincoats, over trousers, woolen socks, climbing boots, beanies, woolen mittens, and spikes to strap on once we reached the ice.
We began with a 40 minute walk through easy terrain and crossed through the beginnings of the river. A few places of boulder hopping, and then the glacier presented itself as if a wave from the ocean had slowly oozed down the mountain and froze in mid air. It was rather dirty but had a distance blue-ish hue capped with jagged white at it's edges carved down by the running water (from the ice melt).
"Horse" our guide had on shorts and carried a pickax and showed us how to strap on our spikes. He was NOT a gentle man. He did NOT have a sense of humor, and he did NOT bother to wait long when we fell behind. I strapped on my spikes and a Russian couple offered to take a picture of me with my gear on so I took them up on it and then returned the favor. Our guide then pointed up into the glacier and told us that half of us would be going with "that Australian" there so I shuffled into the stranger's group because I did NOT want to be in Horse's group any longer.
The Australian guide (William) was a young bloke (they all were) and he had an Australian sense of humor- making fun at our own expense. Two English girls and I made a pact to stick together through the hike and we encouraged each other, laughed about our ill-fated weather, and talked back to the guide when he gave us crap. (Which was constantly). First, we had a 40 minute climb onto the ice-face via ice stairs cut into it. At the top we had 30seconds to rest and then climbed up 3 more sets. After that, the stairs disappeared and we were on our own to walk by digging our toes into the glacier for best footing. I only slipped once and I didn't slip far. There were 3 American girls from LA in our group and towards the middle one of them started to panic telling our guide she wanted to go down. He just said, "aw come on, put one foot in front of the other and let's go then!"
There was one tricky patch with a steep decent and it seemed like there was no place for footing, and a very long fall to my right. Since our guide had hopped over it, and the next 2 had taken a long time to conquer it, I hadn't seen how the guide had stepped and I called to him for guidance.
"Where does my next foot go?"
"Right there."
"Are you SURE?"
"Yeah."
"Uh . . "
"Go on then, just bend your knees & step down."
"Okay, but-"
"did you ever see the show where there was a guy with a striped shirt and -"
"Okay thanks but STOP talking to me please, I need to concentrate." (and I step while he drones on about some show I'd never heard of and with no sympathy for an unsteady American telling him to shush).
Fair enough.
After that we stopped for lunch in between downpours and a misty rain. Shoving that sandwich down felt good but the longer we stood the colder it got so we didn't rest long.
The English girls lamented about the bad luck they have had on this leg of the trip and it made me glad I'd booked in advance and had that tour company take care of everything. Apparently, they'd been ripped off several times and every guide they had had been rude or non-sympathetic. Most of the time I would have thought our guide was amusing and maybe tried to befriend him, but when you are constantly in that zone- talking yourself through every step and trying to ignore the freezing wet, a guide who could really care less about you isn't so fun.
Still, he was plenty skilled and paid careful attention to us on the more tricky spots- later admitting he wasn't making it any easier on us! (They carry pick ax's to carve footholds in the ice and the rain made the ice constantly slick- he however, maybe carved 4 footholds the whole time) All that said, I was proud of our group- aside from those two brief meltdowns by American girls (what can I say) we pushed through without complaint.
6 hours later we'd descended back to those steps we started on to prepare for our final decent but one of the footbridges had broken so some guides had to repair it so we all stood huddled on the top of the ice getting really cold because we weren't moving. William finally broke and called out at one point to the slow-moving groups ahead of us "hey, now that the bridge is repaired, can you get a move on down there? We're freezing our . . . ."
The physical part of it felt AMAZING. After sitting on a bus for 3 days climbing stairs and hiking for 6 hours really felt so dreamy. We went at a very comfortable pace (although a bit fast sometimes) and it kept us nice and warm while in motion.
The glacier looked exactly like the Disneyland ride . . . . shoot, what is it Carine?? I haven't been in a very long time & now I have forgotten. Well anyway, that ride with the big white mountain and the abominable snowman . . . it looked just like that! I resisted commenting on the fact it almost looked fake.
It was incredible. I really do recommend it. Hopefully on a sunnier day because visibility was terrible and it just is a bit uncomfortable when you are wet. I thought the day would be so long but it went by fast and aside from our strange mountain men guides, the people were all friendly and we all looked out for each other.
Once you get into the groove, it's fun to be climbing through running streams of water all over the place, and you don't really notice the rain.
Back on the bus tomorrow, then a train ride back to Christchurch for my final night in the South Island. I've seen amazing sights- stuff you thing the films make up but indeed, I've seen middle earth, touched the trees that came to life in Lord of the rings, and seen water so pure and clear, it looked as if it was glass.
Highly recommend this trip. I know I'll be back!
See everyone very soon!
Love, Chrissie
