Near Death Experience #2

FRANZ JOSEF
The Franz Josef Glacier located so close to the sea and the rainforest that it is a natural phenomenon "...mighty cascades of ice, tumbling down a valley towards the sea..."

This glacier climb is reknown as one of the best tourist attractions in New Zealand but after my experience, there was nothing attractive about it! Sunday, June 11, I was scheduled to climb the 8 hour hike to the blue ice and beautiful views of the glacier but it was raining. Since I had already paid and this was supposed to THE experience of a lifetime, I went. (Once again, Meagan's intuition told her not to go)... We were clothed in 4 layers + gortex rain jackets and pants, hiking boots with spikes for the ice, etc but within 20 minutes everything in our day packs was completely drenched. Luckily I thought of putting my camera underneath my layers against my stomach in hopes that it might, just might stay dry. Apparently most people thought their bags were "waterproof" and didn't do the same. Unfortunately, most of them had to forfeit mucho dinero for another one.

So anyhow, as we got closer, the ice looked incredibly large. It was virtually a mountain of ice between two rock mountains! The first part of the ice is quite dirty and rocky but after about 2 hours of hiking, it got a little nice. At this point, 11:15am, the guide suggested that we take a break for a quick snack to tide us over until lunch. There was so much rain and we were so cold that we couldn't take any pictures or stop for more than 2 minutes or we began to freeze.

I was so cold because the gloves we were wearing were wool and were literally filled with water. We could wring them out about every 20 seconds and about a half a cup of water poured out! Nice for keeping the old hands warm huh?

As the rain continued to fall, the steps from the previous group were washed away by the rising water levels and the guide had to pick-axe new ones for us to follow. About this time, things were getting hairy because the rain was falling harder and our footing was getting worse. (A girl from another group that we happened upon fell into one of the glacial pools up to her chest!) Some of the steps were so small and up against a verticle ice wall that we had to press ourselves up against... they even put a metal pick with a rope attached into the ice so we could use it to "swing" ourselves around a huge ice boulder that jutted out over a crevasse/abyss because there was nothing to hold on to! Needless to say, most of you know that I'm a very tough girl but I was panicking... I started to cry a little (embarrassingly) because I literally thought I was goint to die and I was scared.

We could tell the guides were nervous... even raising their voices at one another and there was talk of a helicopter flying in to evacuate us. The rain started to fall so hard that we couldn't see 5 feet in front of us and the winds were so strong that I had to take a 3-point stance behind a glacier block to stand up safely. The ice was incredibly slippery and we were walking over tiny ledges that were getting smaller with the rain.

Eventually the guides realized that we couldn't go down the way they had planned because the path had been washed away, so they had to take us back UP the glacier to create a new path to get us DOWN. So as that went on, there was no more counting of climbers or even talking. Everyone had a mission, to get home safely. Two more girls fell in the glacial pools... yikes. Then, the thunder and lightening started... and hail! It was hailing on us!

We made it off of the glacier by about 4:30pm (that's almost 4 hours of trying to get home!) and came across a small stream that we had stepped crossed early that morning. The stream was now a raging river with the water to my hips! The guides had us walk 5 across with 3 of us in the middle and 2 guides on either side. We had to wrap our arms around one-another's waists and shuffle our feet along the ground to the other side. One girl in the group in front of me actually lost footing and was pulled down by the current. It took 3 male guides to get her standing again! I almost lost footing but my teammates held me up. When we got to the other side of the river, 2 more guides grabbed our jackets and yanked us across the bank to safety.

Basically it is all history from there because after that it was another hour walk home through the rainforest before we could get changed into warm clothes.

Apparently, had the company known that the weather was going to change, they wouldn't have sent us out on that day. The storm lasted for a couple of days and even knocked out the electricity in the city (Meagan was pretty worried about me on the glacier at that point!) The hike the next day was cancelled.