Franz Josef Glacier is the name of a town and the name of the glacier itself that lies just a few kilometers from the town. We stayed at the TOP 10 Holiday Park in Franz Josef Glacier, the town. It was a pleasant enough park, clean facilities. When we got ready to go in the morning, the campervan would not start. The battery had been drawn down by the headlights so we had to call for a jump. We called the 800 number the rental company had given us. After some discussion it was determined that we were covered for the service call so it would not cost us anything. Someone would be out to help us within an hour. Louise left to do laundry while we waited. The service man arrived in about 50 minutes and we were ready to go before the laundry was done. That was fine, we had instructions to run the engine for about 30 minutes before shutting it off. Our first destination of the day was just a few minutes away so we might as well wait for the laundry.

The Franz Josef Glacier is approximately 12 kilometers long and is melting away fast. The viewpoint today is where the terminus of the glacier stood in 2008, just six years ago. Now from that viewpoint you can’t see the terminus, it lies at the end of a tongue descending from an ice fall several thousand feet above the viewing point. The whole terminal end of the glacier is so fragile that tourists are kept off the glacier except for the very upper reaches which can be visited by helicopter. Still, it is worth going to see as it obviously isn’t going to be more easily accessible for the foreseeable future. Glaciers are the ice cube in the cold drink which is our Earth. When they are gone what will keep the drink cold? To me it is frightening to see ice disappear at this rate. This is of course true all over the Earth, in Alaska, in Greenland, in the Arctic Ocean and in Antarctica.

Our walk from the parking lot to the viewpoint took about 40 minutes. There were several beautiful waterfalls along the way. Walking up the river flowing from the melting glacier we can see some of the rocks which melted out of the glacier in the past as it retreated its way back up the valley. Some of these boulders are the size of houses. As the mountainside is cut away, rocks fall onto the glacier and are carried along like riding on a conveyer belt. When they reach the terminus the ice melts from under them and they come to rest at that point. If the glacier begins to advance it will push the boulder ahead of it, otherwise the rock sits where it melted from the glacier. Rocks of this type are common in the upper Midwest of the US in the region once covered by the ice sheets of the ice age. They are called erratics. They are almost always a different kind of stone than the bedrock in the area, having been transported from some distance away. You will see them out in the middle of fields or in front yards of homes. Wherever you find them, they are evidence that ice once existed here.

Leaving the glacier we drive a short distance to Fox Glacier. It is now raining again and we are not going to hike to the glacier in the rain. We did make a short stop to investigate several shops looking for a hat for Louise. We found one in the second shop we visited.

We continued on to a small village of Haast. Not much to see here but a good overnight stop. The folks at the TOP 10 Holiday Park were friendly, efficient and put us into a powered site. The restrooms and kitchen were in a large Quonset hut. It was modern construction and was absolutely beautiful inside. The restrooms were some of the nicest and cleanest we have seen. They were even heated which was nice now that we are getting further south and in the mountains along the west coast. Temperatures are in the 70’s during the day but drop into the 50’s at night. The weather remains dry, we’ve only had two days with enough rain to stop our activities so far.