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The world is my school. Today my classroom was the Franz Josef Glacier way up in the mountains on the South Island of New Zealand. This is what happened:
At preciecely 11:15 we were supposed to arrive at The Helicopter Line and get checked in. At 11:30 we went to the "boot room" to get suited up (socks, boots, crampons, jackets, gear bag). Lastly, at 12:00 sharp we got on the helicopter. Within 5-10 minutes we arrived at the Franz Josef Glacier. Once we got off the copter, we put on our crampons. These are overshoes that you put on, and they have spikes sticking out of them so you could dig your feet into the ice.
Once everyone got his or her crampons on we were off onto the glacier. It was almost entirely white and blue except for some areas that were rock that covered the ice. Only a little while after that we saw a huge chunk of ice fall down and it looked like a marble run.
Stomp, stomp is what I had to do with my feet, because I am little my crampons need to be forced a little bit into the ice. I had to keep my legs apart so they didn't get caught onto each other- walking like a cowboy! The guide just started telling us how this is an amazing temperate rain forest glacier and that this only exists 3 places in the world: the Franz Josef Glacier (ours), Fox Glacier (just to the south of us), and a glacier in Argentina, which is in South America. You can see where the glacier forms in the Neve, where it travels down the mountain, and how it flows to the sea all from where I stand!
It all starts like this:
Snow falls at the top of the mountain into a bowl-like place (think tennis racket handle) and the weight of it pushes down on itself and makes a giant iceball, then gravity plus some melting pushes the iceball down the mountain- actually in the channel made between 2 mountains (think the tennis racket handle with the end of the handle ending up on the sea). Because its almost frozen it moves very slowly, but can still move up to 4 meters a day. I wasn't all that surprised when the guide said 4 meters a day, because it is so hot up here- we were in shorts!
We used ice picks and our crampons to jump around and there were some real dangerous placed that were holes in the ice leading 150 meters down under the glacier. SPLAT! I went through an icecave. When the ice moved you could hear a rumble then a bunch of rock or ice would fall away making a long journey down.
I truly loved the glacier but if I was going to choose which I liked better, the glacier or the helicopter ride… I would definitely say…
The Franz Josef Glacier.
<3 World Rings Bell
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