Franz Josef Glacier

hi everyone!  i've been suuuuper lame about doing this whole blog thing, but i promise that i'll start updating it more.

these are some pictures from my trip to the south island when we went to Franz Josef glacier.  this has been my favorite thing i've done here so far.  we did a half day hike up the glacier, and the view from the top was so beautiful.  we had to wear huge boots and then attatch these spikes called crampons so that we could stick in the ice.  some parts had carved stairs, which were definitly made for people with bigger legs because some steps were quite a climb for me.  you looked out over a huge valley and could see for miles and miles.  and we got put in the advanced hiking group, not by choice, but it ended up being really cool because at the end of the glacier hike instead of taking a flat hike over rocks to get back to the bus, we went on this CRAZY hike through the forest and we had to climb rocks and really old, shaky ladders.  the ladder parts were kind of scary, but the hike itself was really fun.  and our guide was super cu

te!

as far as our clothes go...we had met people in our hostel who had gone on the hike the day before.  it had been a really sunny day and 

they said that even though they were hiking on ice it was really hot and they didn't even need their jackets.  so for our hike we wore our running shorts thinking that would be smart...it wasn't. it was freeeeeezing and so we had to wear these huge jackets they gave us, but they were so big that they covered our shorts and it pretty much looked like we were hiking a glacier naked.  people would walk past us and kind of do a double take because we looked so ridiculous.  but it kept us laughing during the whole hike!