Today I am up to the heli-hike on Franz Josef with The Guiding Company.
The weather is very sunny and the night sky was very clear and crisp. A Top spot for astronomical observations down under on the West Coast of New Zealand!
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The helicopter flies us quickly up the glacier and this time our pilot gives us a bit of adrenaline when he passes a huge cliff and go down immediately after: wooha!
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We then land on the ice and wear our Gortex jacket, put our crampons and take our axe.
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The ice architecture of this area looks very different than the place I landed a few days ago for my heli-hike on the Fox Glacier: there are more vertical formations and accessible crevices! The glacier is also wider and the upper scenery is gorgeous.
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It's nice and warm up there and we don't need any more our warm jackets: a tee shirt is enough. After only two minute walk, we arrive at a river carved ice cave. It's about 80cm large and 2 meter high.
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The ice is pure and blue: that's beautiful!
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The exit is an enlarged crevice: the guides carved steps on each wall and thanks to a rope, it's very easy to get out.
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Crevices are formed when the glacier ice speed changes: the upper part is moving slower than the lower part.
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We continue our journey and soon we reach a large pool of pure glacier water. I saw on some pictures that some people are courageous enough to swim in it for a few seconds! The pool is covered with crystal shaped ice. These ice crystals only form when the temperature drops very quickly to -10 degree Celsius.
We then reach another interesting ice formation: it's an arch with a large entrance and a narrow exit up. The thing is that you have to lie down and then slide up to the exit like penguin. That's fun and I do it twice to get both pictures from the entrance and exit!
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Continuing our hike, we arrive in an area with amazingly vertical eroded blocs of ice and crevices. It's a good time to take 3D pictures of the Franz Josef glacier.
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Our guide shows us the way back to the helicopter landing area (a flat 7 by 6 meter rectangle).
While waiting for our helicopter, I can't resist taking some fun pictures in the sun :-)
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On our flight back, we can enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Fox Glacier and Tasman Sea.
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