On a trip I made to the west coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s South Island in February 2019, the strength of the late summer sun made the lush rainforests and wild rivers surrounding the Franz Josef glacier steam.
From its base, the once immeasurable glacier has now receded to a sliver of blaring white nestled between the sedimentary rock of the southern alps. When the opportunity presented itself to take a helicopter ride to the glacier to hike around it for a few hours, I couldn’t resist accepting. As the helicopter ascends, the vastness of the reflective white and deep turquoises of the glacier open up below. The guides remind me that the path we will be taking was carved out in the early morning, but the ever-changing nature of the glacier means that new crevasses may have opened up or collapsed sections of this path so it’s important to stay close.
As we roamed through the carved ice my senses were overwhelmed with the grandeur of not only the visual scenery but the thunderous noise of collapsing ice in the far-off distance, a harrowing reminder of the sheer magnitude of the landscape. An exhilarating lesson in insignificance.
By Cait Kennedy
2019
