Franz Josef Glacier is one of two famous glaciers in the Westland National Park, the other being Fox Glacier 33km south. Nowhere else at the same latitude have glaciers advanced so close to the sea. Pretty cool.
To make it cooler, I decided to hop on a helicopter to take me to the top to hike around it a bit. The following pictures, shot on Tuesday, September 28th, are just a few of the amazing things I saw.
Flying In+
This is the first look I had at the glacier from the helicopter. It's hard to believe, but this ice waterfall advances anywhere from 1m to 5m per day.
Terminal Moraine+
This mass of boulders and rocks ahead of the ice flow marks the glacier's end point, or terminal moraine. A plane that crashed 3.5km from the top of this puppy made it to this point in only 6.5 years, averaging 1.5m per day.
Icefall+
Once we landed and got situated with our ice picks and what not, this is what things looked like just below the clouds. The earth jutting out of the glacier basically marks the beginning of what's known as an icefall.
Lateral Moraine+
After hiking around a bit, I reached the lateral moraine. This is the point where the sides of the glacier has formed walls of debris. The peaks of ice there are called seracs and are created by the glacier as it passes over obstacles.
Ice Cave+
Many ice caves are formed by a combination of glacier melting and movement. We needed to crawl through this one to make our way to a kettle lake.
Kettle Lake+
This is what's known as a kettle lake. Basically it's a large pool of water formed by an area of isolated, or dead, melting ice.