Franz Josef
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sun 12 May 2013 09:42
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This is a glacier, named after the then Emperor of
Austria-Hungary by a German explorer in the 1860s. It is currently about 12km
long and is unique in flowing down to 300m through lush green temperate
rainforest; or at least it did. Since 2008 it has been in very very rapid
retreat and is disapperaing up its valley.
Here it is, just visible at the end of the flat
valley floor and again just below the clouds:
 The tree-covered rocks in the foreground were
covered in ice when the glacier was 'discovered', but it was advancing rapidly
again until 2008.
Here it is again, with some people for better
scale:
 And here is the ice cascade from the end of the
track:
 Above here is the remaining 10km of glacier, fed by
a 20 square kilometre snowfield.
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