Franz Josef Glacier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.

This article or section may use words or ideas of other works in its text without citing sources. Using citations to support claims outside the realm of elementary knowledge helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. Please improve the article or discuss this issue on the talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

Franz Josef glacier, as photographed from the valley floor.

Location of the Franz Josef glacier.

The Franz Josef is a glacier located in Westland National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Together with the Fox Glacier 20 km to the south, it is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to just 200 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest.

The area surrounding the two glaciers is designated a World Heritage Site. The river emerging from the glacier terminal of Franz Josef is known as the Waiho.

1 Naming
2 Growth and retreat
3 Tourism
4 Gallery
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Naming

It was named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by the German explorer, Julius von Haast in 1865. The Māori name for the glacier is Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere — the tears of Hinehukatere — arising from a legend: Hinehukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover, Tawe, to climb with her. An avalanche swept Tawe from the peaks to his death. Hinehukatere was broken hearted and her many, many tears froze to form the glacier.

[edit] Growth and retreat

The glacier is currently 12 km long and terminates 19 km from the Tasman Sea. It exhibits a cyclic pattern of advance and retreat, driven by differences between the volume of meltwater at the foot of the glacier and volume of snowfall feeding the névé.

Having retreated several kilometres between the 1940s and 1980s, the glacier entered an advancing phase in 1984 and at times has advanced at the phenomenal (by glacial standards) rate of 70 cm a day. The flow rate is about 10 times that of typical glaciers. Over the longer term, the glacier has retreated since the last ice age, and it is believed that it extended into the sea some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

This cyclic behaviour is well illustrated by a postage stamp issued in 1946, depicting the view from St James Anglican Church. The church was built in 1931, with a panoramic altar window to take advantage of its location. By 1954, the glacier had disappeared from view from the church, but it reappeared in 1997.

[edit] Tourism

The glacier area is one of the main tourist attractions of the West Coast. Guided and unguided walks up to and onto the glacier are possible. The latter require some specialised equipment, namely ice axes and crampons that latch onto a sturdy boot.

As the walking part of any tour up to the glacier takes a long time, and ends at the first icefall (a sort of frozen waterfall, showing a natural dip of the land underneath), numerous tourist book helicopter tours from one of the several local airlines, which usually drop their guests between the first and second icefall, for a guided 1-2 hour walk through the broken ground atop the glacier. Though the glacial landscape changes almost daily with the glaciers unusually fast flow, and some walks include passages through ice tunnels, they are still considered quite safe and only somewhat strenuous.

Franz Josef village, a tourism service centre.

[edit] Gallery

Photo from the mountainside.	Tour group hiking on the glacier.	Crevasses from above the glacier.	Cracks & seracs on the glacier.
Tour group helicopter sets down on the glacier.	Second icefall with tour group helicopter.	Aerial photo of the extents.	Glacier Neve and icefall.
Early morning at Franz Josef Glacier.	Early morning at Franz Josef Glacier as seen from village.