Franz

Today just a short blog, partly because I have some sick adventures to share with you tomorrow. I hiked the Franz Josef glacier today. A full day hike, getting up at six, present at 8:15, walk/climb to five in the afternoon. I though it would be tough, but funnily enough I felt quite fit at the end of the afternoon. I booked the full day tour with Franz Josef Glacier Guides, the main guiding company in Franz. Our guide was a 30 something marine biologist with a passion for mountaineering. Slightly odd combination, yessir. He was a cool guy though, with lots of stories to tell.

We couldn't had a better day to do our hike: bright blue skies, lovely temprature and not too much wind, just perfect. We started out early, and after a short walk to the base of the glacier we split into six groups, each representing a fitness level.

I was in the second one, but later realized I should've opted for the first one; even though it was the second fastest group, we stood around a lot, waiting for everyone to catch up. The scenery made up fot it though. First we hiked to the face (the lower part) of the glacier, then upwards. The beginning was mainly black ice, mixed with rocks that had been transported down the mountain side ages ago by the moving ice. After a while we came to the white, and then blue ice; simply amazing. There were a lot of caves, crevices, tunnels and bridges along the way, which added to the adventure part of our hike. At lunchtime we came at some big crevices, which were amazing to walk through. Some were only half a meter wide, tops, so that you had to place your feet in front of each other and shuffle forward. You couldn't bring your backfoot past your front one, as their simply was no room to do that, and you could hurt yourself with the spikes under our shoes.

After the crevices we hiked on some 'waves'. Large chunks of glacier torn apart under pressure creating big gaps in between them. That took a long while, as there were some slow people in the group. I would have liked to have some more freedom, but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to join the first group. Minus the boring parts spent waiting on other members of the group, I had a great time, definetely worth the money. You get some professional gear and a pro guide who knows what's safe and what's not. I'll put a lot of video's and photo's on my blog tomorrow of a new adventure, but for now, enjoy the glacier pics.

Ciao, Ape and Nic