A glacier is a slow moving body of ice, drawn by gravity down a valley. It is fed at the head by large amounts of snow that compact and partially melt to form a whitish granular snow called firn. Over a number of years water seeps in and air is expelled under the weight of the accumulating snow and the granules eventually merge together forming bluish glacial ice. Due to gravitation the glacier slowly moves down the valley like a giant ice river which slowly melts as it reaches the more temperate lower levels. There are over 11 glaciers in the Westland and Mount Cook National Parks. Today we went on an Air Safari in a 6 seater plane flying above the largest of these glaciers, Fox, Franz Josef and Tasman and also mountains including Mount Cook and Mount Tasman to name just a couple. It was amazing, the sky was blue, the sun was shining and we could see for miles the range of mountains covered in a thick coating of snow. From above the glaciers are a multitude of colours, brown caused by forestation, blue from the water which is melting snow and of course the white of the snow, they almost look like thick whipped cream. We were able to see helicopters land on the snow below us and the people emerging looking like scattering ants, they were so small.
We followed this by a trip up to the Franz Josef Glacier where we hiked up as close to it as we could to see it from a different angle. Of interest while we were there was the man who was perched on a rock face at the side of the glacier with a pick axe carving steps out of the rock. We never did find out why he was doing. However, on looking back we did see a group of people suddenly appear on the top of the rock and make their way towards him so perhaps he was making a stairway for them!!
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