By George, It's a Glass-y-er!
Laura Maestrelli on Friday, February 19, 2010 at 9:14PM ;)
As if New Zealand didn’t already have enough going for it — incredible jagged mountains, crystal blue seas surrounded by lush green islands, steaming volcanic rivers from the center of the earth, giant fern forests, deep caverns lined with glowing worms, Flight of the Conchords — it has to go ahead and throw a glacier surrounded by a temperate rain forest into the mix. We spent a full day climbing up the Franz Josef glacier, and though both of us had seen it before, there was something about being on the ice for a full 6 hours surrounded by blue ice lit up by the miraculous appearance of the sun (they don’t call it a rain forest for nothin’!) that made this a pretty special day.
The best way to get a sense of our day on the ice is through the photos we took (and the captions explaining them) — but even they really don’t do justice to the incredible size and scope of this incredible frozen behemoth. It is a truly humbling experience to stand on millions of tons of ice that are literally moving beneath your feet (the glacier is currently advancing at 5 meters per DAY!), to see the valley it has chewed up and left behind during previous advances, to look down a crack in the ice and have no idea where it ends, and to experience all of that surrounded by a rain forest that is less than 10 miles from the sea. As Dustin and I have said numerous times on this trip: Nice work, Nature. Nice work.
hiking, tours in New Zealand
Reader Comments (2)
Sounds great. Miss you guys!
Wow, amazing pictures! So so so so so jealous right now.
Greg F