Franz Josef Glacier (South Island, NZ)
One of my NZ's amazing adventures was the "1/2 day Glacier Experience", the first time I've been climbing and walking on the ice. What an unforgettable blue ice!
The ritual starts by signing a paper that makes you the only responsible in case of an accident or something bad. That paper and all its questions makes you thinking about doing or not that activity. It alert you about all the risks and never talk about the pretty good experience up.
Wearing the equipment is something really nice. We seem like actors and actresses doubles preparing for a dangerous movie scene.
We started our 4 hours walking with a rain forest track. When we arrived at the beautiful valley with big waterfalls on the mountains around, one of the guides told us to choose our team. There was 5 teams, the first one with the hardest level, and the fifth one with the slowest level. Of course I chose the Team 1, after the guide told “my team is for people who feels confident, not doing this (making gestures of who is trembling with his legs)”.
When we finished to climb the stone part of the mountain, we joined a metallic sole, with claws. “Now, we are prepared to the Glacier!”
Our guide was taming the way, making steps and other things with a pickaxe, while we're going on.
After keeping almost the time the 1st and 2nd places behind the guide, he asked me and my aunt: Where are you from? Of course he did the question that everyone does, when we answered Cape Verde Island: Where is that? While I was explaining with the same movements, trying to draw the African continent in the palm of my hand, an American guy from Boston, said: I know where it is. I’ve got a lot of friends from there.
The guide asked us why we were walking and climbing so fast and easily, “it’s not your first time in a Glacier?” And we said: “Yes, it is! But we have a lot of mountains in our island; it should be in our blood…”
The most exciting stuf we’ve done was passing for a running ice strait, where we were making our profile fitting in the curves of the ice walls, the bluest than already were seen.
NZ has 3.152 Glaciers and 18 of them are in the North Island. When the guide asked us for this subject, people was starting to say: 20, 50, 300... Getting so far and so cold. Who can believe this?! Wow!!!
I’d like to repeat this adventures more and more times…
The ritual starts by signing a paper that makes you the only responsible in case of an accident or something bad. That paper and all its questions makes you thinking about doing or not that activity. It alert you about all the risks and never talk about the pretty good experience up.
Wearing the equipment is something really nice. We seem like actors and actresses doubles preparing for a dangerous movie scene.
We started our 4 hours walking with a rain forest track. When we arrived at the beautiful valley with big waterfalls on the mountains around, one of the guides told us to choose our team. There was 5 teams, the first one with the hardest level, and the fifth one with the slowest level. Of course I chose the Team 1, after the guide told “my team is for people who feels confident, not doing this (making gestures of who is trembling with his legs)”.
When we finished to climb the stone part of the mountain, we joined a metallic sole, with claws. “Now, we are prepared to the Glacier!”
Our guide was taming the way, making steps and other things with a pickaxe, while we're going on.
After keeping almost the time the 1st and 2nd places behind the guide, he asked me and my aunt: Where are you from? Of course he did the question that everyone does, when we answered Cape Verde Island: Where is that? While I was explaining with the same movements, trying to draw the African continent in the palm of my hand, an American guy from Boston, said: I know where it is. I’ve got a lot of friends from there.
The guide asked us why we were walking and climbing so fast and easily, “it’s not your first time in a Glacier?” And we said: “Yes, it is! But we have a lot of mountains in our island; it should be in our blood…”
The most exciting stuf we’ve done was passing for a running ice strait, where we were making our profile fitting in the curves of the ice walls, the bluest than already were seen.
NZ has 3.152 Glaciers and 18 of them are in the North Island. When the guide asked us for this subject, people was starting to say: 20, 50, 300... Getting so far and so cold. Who can believe this?! Wow!!!
I’d like to repeat this adventures more and more times…
Estranhei haver alguém que soubesse onde fica CV. Mas curti a não-coincidência de ser um bostoniano! N
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