After the drive to Franz Josef, we were ready to jump right out of the car and party. ..or at least walk around. Franz Josef town is one of those places that is full of non-English speaking tourists, and is composed of cute looking restaurants and stores that have clearly sprung up just to serve the tourist population. Any time you have a ratio of 3 internet cafés to one local, you know you’re in trouble.

The place we stayed was a mammoth eco-resort, with hostels, hotel rooms, and campsites. It was nice enough, but was full of Others. Young Others, in their teens and early 20s. We managed to hook my computer up to the wireless in one of the kitchens and I got online and did some blogging. The kitchen was full of backpackers, including one older French man who made my heart hurt. He was about 25 years older than all the people in there (excluding us) and he was obviously traveling alone. He had bought a giant package of frozen fish (perhaps intentionally) and was asking everyone in the room if they wanted some. It was heartbreaking to watch, but finally a sweet English girl whom he clearly knew came over to speak to him and look at his glacier photographs. It’s a good thing she did, because I was about 30 seconds away from going over and just giving him a hug.

The next morning, we wandered around town before our glacier climb. Franz Josef is a pretty place, but towns like that that are clearly designed and run strictly for tourists skeeve me out a lot.

TRAGEDY AVERTED! When we left Melbourne, I had the sinking feeling that I had accidentally shipped my sunglasses back to Maine. I couldn’t find them for days and was becoming increasingly sad about it. I wasn’t helped by the fact that in Golden Bay, T squinted at the sun and said to me, “It’s a great day for sunglasses!” and then fell over laughing. In FJ, I was told to get some for the climb, because the sun reflects off the glacier, so we did some shopping. None of the sunnies I saw was as nice as my $20 Target pair, but I resigned myself to buying some. Fortunately, we did one last sweep of the van before forking over the $45, and surprise! They were in T’s bag! Thief!

The glacier climb was interesting. There were about 50 people on the bus out there, and when it came time to climb and they asked for the people who were looking for a “more active” experience, about half of them shoved everyone else out of the way and pushed forward. This is why I hate people, people. It is much better to stay away from Others.

Since I only shove people out of my way to get onto a subway, T and I were left in the less aggressive group, which was fine with me. In the end, all the groups ended up spending the exact same amount of time on the glacier anyway, and I laughed inside.

We were all decked out in waterproof jackets, giant boots and crampons, and were also given wool hats and mittens. We were split into another two groups and started to climb the stairs that were hacked out of the snow. It was surprisingly easy for me, and I hate hiking. We climbed up for about an hour, then spent about 20 minutes having a snack, and then headed back down.

The glacier was covered with all sorts of rocks and crusty debris, which apparently comes from some kind of glacier explosion. Apparently, with all the melting and freezing, after a while glaciers suddenly expel all the dirt and grit inside, and that’s why the pictures are all of a grey glacier. Interesting, no?

T and I had decided to do the glacier climb because we figured that if Al Gore is right, there might not be much more time to do this kind of stuff. The glacier had once extended out to the end of the valley at its bottom, but gradually receded back to where it is today. It was interesting to hear that it’s actually pushing forward again now, and has been spreading back out since about 1999. It’s still much, much smaller than it was.

I was obviously disappointed by all the grit everywhere, but when we got close up to the ice, I was thrilled. It was a gorgeous sort of crystal blue—exactly the shade of my sister’s favorite color. And being a nerd for textures, I was fascinated by the ripples and valleys that the ice made. Inside the ice, we could actually see the water melting and moving around.

It was stunning and I’m really glad we did it, even if the crampons cut into my strangely shaped ankles so much that by the time we descended, my feet were nothing but bloody stumps. Even then.