January 29 - February 27, 2025 New Zealand February 13

Today we are traveling to Franz Josef/Walau near Fox Glacier, along the Moeraki River, over Paringa to the beach, Brother Bay Beach, and then continuing to the Franz Josef Glacier.

The Franz Josef Glacier (English: Franz Josef Glacier, Māori: Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere) is an approximately 10 km long glacier located in the Westland National Park on the South Island of New Zealand.

Around 150,000 years ago, the glacier was so large that it completely encased Aoraki/Mount Cook and the surrounding mountains. The repeated melting and regrowth of the glacier resulted in the formation of several hill chains in the valley towards the sea, made from the moraine rock pushed by the glacier. The Franz Josef Glacier is a temperate glacier and flows about half a meter per day. A plane that crashed above the glacier was released from the ice after a relatively short seven years. The high flow rate is also due to the large amount of water flowing over waterfalls to the right and left of the ice under the glacier, which acts as a sort of lubricant.

Just like the Fox Glacier, the Franz Josef Glacier was once so large that it calved directly into the sea calved. Even today, together with the Fox Glacier, it is one of the lowest glaciers above sea level (about 400 m) at mid-latitudes. After the glacier had significantly retreated between the end of the 19th century and 1982, losing over 3 km in length, it began to grow again by about 1 km since 1982. Since 1999, the trend has reversed, and the glacier has again lost mass.

Thus, the Franz Josef Glacier is one of the few large glaciers that have not been significantly affected by global glacier melt. By the end of the century, it is still expected that the glacier will lose another 5 km in length and about 38% of its mass.