Meeting theGSC

Arriving in Franz Joseph I find that the YHA continues to offer a comfortable place to stay and the 4 bed dorms here are good value. The settlement is very small with just two streets and three cross streets (easily walkable in 20mins) and includes several places to eat, a garage and small supermarket (bare in mind that the prices are significantly higher than in Wanaka so you might want to stock up first). I meet a great group of guys and take part in an environmental quiz for ‘Earth Hour’, while discussing philosophy! We fail to win (but its not about the winning its the taking part ;)) later, cards are dealt out and we play a few hands well into the evening :) By the end of the evening I have discovered that they are all heading on a full day hike onto and over the Franz Joseph Glacier in the morning…

Today is wet… I mean WET… It started raining in the early morning and has not stopped tipping it down since then!! Considering that it is now late afternoon this means it has been raining heavily for more than 8 hours straight 0_0 and while it has now stopped there are ominous looking clouds overhead threatening another downpour… Asking about the rainfall I discover that the average rainfall here is measured not in ‘mm’ but in ‘m’ - Geography textbooks will quote 2000mm of rain being average for a rainforest… well… Here they have between 5 and 9m (5000-9000mm) a year! Making it one of the wettest places on earth… Today it has lived up to this average and once again while I type it starts to rain heavily again!!

GSC (Glacier Survivors Club)
This is the name I have given to the group of guys who I met last night as they returned with legendary tales from their full day Glacier hike this evening… It had rained all day and this had made the ice particularly slippery and left the whole group soaked through, on top of this they had traversed a tricky piece of ice and this had led to several slips while wearing the required crampons (for those that do not know these are boot sole attachment with spikes to dig into the ice)… Well… The legendary tales included; While climbing the Glacier Dave had lost his footing on a steep slope, fallen over and ended up on his front sliding towards almost certain death over the edge of a 50m deep crevasse, wildly but ineffectively grabbing at the ice with his hands like a wild cat!! 0_0 Only the lightning fast reactions of the guide saved him as he turned round and grabbed Dave’s pack to haul him to a stop and helped him up to his feet, hands bloodied and knee battered… As you can imagine this is enough to leave anyone shaken up, but all merit to him, Dave braved the conditions and continued even though bruised. Next came another fall as the crampons were not something easy to walk in and this led to another moment of floundering on the ice with another fall leading to an bruised thumb! Continuing up the glacier came the third and final incident where a women climber also lost her footing, slamming into the ice and rolled over to a stop only to find a world of hurt in a dislocated shoulder!! Serious enough for a helicopter air lift off the glacier 0_0 With great care the remaining 10 hikers gathered themselves together and headed for the exit point of the glacier and returned to the YHA… It was there that I met them - a bedraggled bunch who had survived the glacier experience and still had the bruises to prove it!! I had thought that I would climb the glacier tomorrow… But now I think just looking at it from the hiking trail will be more than enough and save some money into the bargain… In the words of one member of the group - some things you just do once and this is one of them!! I was invited to join them all for a beer at the only happening bar in town and enjoyed a night in good company. Here is to the GSC Cheers and happy travels :)