Ski-touring in Franz Josef, October 2011

The following blog is from Rob Hill in New Zealand.

After much study of weather-maps and tea-leaves, four people from Geraldine and one person from Timaru eventually set out, after a couple of postponements, for a ski-touring trip on the Franz Josef glacier, on the West coast of the South Island of NZ.
The lower part of the glacier is an ice-fall which comes down almost to the coast, and is much visited by tourists; the upper part is a huge area of interconnected glaciers and nevee. The distance from Geraldine to
Franz Josef is probably about 80km as the crow flies, but 500km by road, via Arthur's Pass.

The tea-leaves told lies, and we had to spend a day exploring the beach at Okarito, disturbing the seals as they basked. The sky was clear and blue, but apparently there were strong easterlies up in the mountains, preventing flying in. We choppered in early next morning to the Almer hut, which sits on rocks above the icefall at around 1700m.

The Almer Hut.

A quick sort-out, and we cramponed off along the side of the glacier, donning skis once above the last of the major icefalls. The gradient then was very gentle, and we were able to cover a lot of ground, exploring the various arms. The run back at the end of the day was a little sticky.

Longdrop and the Franz Glacier

The easterlies which had kept us in the valley the day before had forced snow up between the roofing iron and the ceiling of the hut. When we returned, the majority of the area of the ceiling was steadily dripping water so I had the novel experience of having to use my bivvy bag inside a hut.
It blew mightily during the night, and the next day was raining and claggy. Some of us emerged at about 3pm, this time finding a way up the middle of the glacier. The run back was much better than the day before.

Our last day produced the weather the tea-leaves had promised- blue and still. We traversed round on crampons to the Salisbury glacier and skinned up to the saddle with the Franz Josef.

Salisbury-Franz Col

View down the Salisbury Glacier

Then followed a delightful run back down, on perfect snow in the upper part, still a little hard in the lower. We traversed back round to the hut on very sloppy snow, to meet the helicopter at around 1.30.
It's a huge area to explore, as is the neighbouring Fox glacier. Much of the snow gradient is gentle, yet even some peaks of the main divide are accessible when conditions allow.