ONCE UPON A GLACIER

ONCE UPON A GLACIER                                                        Virginia Gow        29/04/12

Confucius may well have said,  “Every journey starts with the first step” and this wise saying may have traveled around the world on wind, paper, text and song but when one is standing looking up at a near perpendicular wall of ice with steps being freshly carved into its sheer sides by a smiling New Zealand mountain goat of a ranger, then the wisdom of the first step is questionable.

Having dreams of scaling mountain heights was not on Ginny’s list of 100 things to do before leaving Gaia.  However, in a mountain lodge where she was painting a mural of mountains a ranger responded to her request to take her to walk upon a glacier.  She wished to experience an epic ice adventure and allow the grand mountain vista to seep into her bones. It was in her mind that she would just step out onto a river of ice and allow her feet to wander over the top of this snow crisp landscape.

Now before her, stretching up over four storeys was the terminal face of a glacier, the biggest in New Zealand. It is the twin to Franz Joseph Glacier and it s name is Fox.This mighty glacier is fed by four alpine glaciers and is 300 metres deep. The Fox River emerges from its base and flows on to the township of Fox.

Having donned on the ice boots, stick in hand, Ginny gazed up in awe at the alpine ice walls. No top rope, no harness held this small group of adventurers as they started their ice climb.

Stepping up lively, adrenaline pumping through ice veins, the intrepid party responded well to the challenge. Towards the top, a rush of dizziness caused Ginny to stop and call to the ranger. He pick axed his way effortlessly to where she was, face frozen, pressed into the ice.

“Would you like to go back down?”  He smiled, “We’re almost at the top. It’s flat up there”. Ginny ‘s head reeled in horror at the thought of climbing down those nearly four storeys of ice steps, backwards. “Oh, no” she said, ”I’ll reach the top”.

With a mighty effort she forced her feet to move on upwards and reached the top. Now here she would happily walk on the glacier and appreciate its stunning majesty.

But wait; stretching out before her was a crack about a metre and a half wide in the ice. Peering over the edge of this crevasse she could not see any bottom.  “Jump!’ said the ranger, and she did. The roof of the glacier held over a dozen crevasses. Everybody just jumped over them. It’s amazing what fear mixed with adrenaline can do.

The party scrambled down another way to reach the little township of Fox. Ginny finished her mural and vowed never again to desire glacial adventures. Once was definitely enough and her bones agreed.