Franz Josef-Fox glacier, Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Westland District, West Coast Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Franz Josef-Fox glacier	Glacier
Westland Tai Poutini National Park	National Park
Westland District	District
West Coast Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Schistose metagreywackes/metasandstones on the east flank of the glacier.

Franz Josef Glacier (officially Franz Josef Glacier / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere) is a 12 km (7.5 mi) long temperate maritime glacier in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Together with the Fox Glacier 20 km (12 mi) to the south, and a third glacier, it descends from the Southern Alps to less than 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level.

The area surrounding the two glaciers is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site park. The river emerging from the glacier terminal of Franz Josef is known as the Waiho River.

The Māori name for the glacier is Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere ('The tears of Hine Hukatere'). According to oral tradition, Hine Hukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover Tuawe to climb with her. Tuawe was a less experienced climber than Hine Hukatere but loved to accompany her until an avalanche swept him from the peaks to his death. Hine Hukatere was broken-hearted and her many, many tears flowed down the mountain. Rangi the Sky Father took pity on her and froze them to form the glacier.

The first European description of one of the West Coast glaciers (believed to be Franz Josef) was made in the log of the ship Mary Louisa in 1859. The glacier was later named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by the German geologist Julius von Haast in 1865.

Following the passage of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, the name of the glacier was officially altered to Franz Josef Glacier / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere.

The névé or snowfield at the head of Franz Josef Glacier is over 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) above sea level and 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) in area. This wide névé, which is over 300 metres (980 ft) deep, feeds large amounts of compacted snow into a steep and narrow valley which drops quickly to very low altitudes: the glacier descends to 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level in just 11 km (6.8 mi). This combination of factors leads to Franz Josef persisting where most temperate-zone glaciers would have already melted and allows it to share a valley with temperate rain forest.

Franz Josef Glacier currently terminates 19 km (12 mi) from the Tasman Sea. Near the end of the last ice age about 18,000 years ago it extended to the present-day coastline or even beyond. As it retreated the glacier left behind moraines of accumulated rock and chunks of ice which created coastal hills and lakes. Lake Wombat is a kettle lake created by ice left in a moraine 9000 years ago, while Peters Pool close to the glacier's face arose in the same fashion just 210 years ago.

The Waiho Loop 4 km north of the settlement of Franz Josef is the terminal moraine of Franz Josef Glacier, deposited by the retreating glacier about 12,000–3,000 years ago.[10] An arc of rubble 80 m high, it was too rugged to be cleared for farming and remains covered in native forest.

Franz Josef Glacier exhibits a cyclic pattern of advance and retreat, driven by differences between the volume of meltwater at the foot of the glacier and the volume of snowfall feeding the névé. Over the past 14,000 years, glaciers worldwide have generally retreated. Most of New Zealand's large glaciers shrank significantly towards the end of the 20th century, a consequence of global warming. However, in the Southern Alps, warmer temperatures cause increased precipitation on the western face of the Main Divide, and the Franz Josef glacier being short and steep is more sensitive to increased snow in the névé than other glaciers. If the increased precipitation falls as snow, the glacier will advance; if as rain, it will retreat. Increased snowfall takes around 5–6 years to result in changes in the terminus location.

Franz Josef Glacier advanced rapidly during the Little Ice Age, reaching a maximum in the early 18th century. When Haast became the first European to see the glacier it was still much longer than today, and the ice surface was 300 m higher. Between its first official mapping in 1893 and a century later in 1983, Franz Josef Glacier had retreated 3 km up the valley.

There were several periods of advance in the 20th century: 1946 to 1951 (340 m), 1965 to 1967 (400 m), 1983 to 1999 (1420 m) and 2004 to 2008 (280 m). All were followed by periods of greater retreat.

This cyclic behaviour is well illustrated by a postage stamp issued in 1946, depicting the view from St James Anglican Church. The church was built in 1931, with a panoramic altar window to take advantage of its location. By 1954, the glacier had disappeared from view from the church, but it reappeared briefly in 1997.

Between 1983 and 2008 while most of the world's glaciers were retreating many New Zealand glaciers advanced. Franz Josef regained nearly half the ice it had lost over the previous century. This anomalous growth has been attributed not to increased rainfall but to a series of cool years caused by increased southerly airflow in the Tasman sea. After 2008 the glacier entered a very rapid phase of retreat, shrinking by 1.5 km between 2008 and 2017. It is now once again 3 km shorter than it was 100 years ago. Based on these patterns, Franz Josef Glacier is predicted to retreat 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) and lose 38% of its mass by 2100 in a mid-range scenario of warming, although it may retreat as much as 8 kilometres (5.0 mi).

There have been some incidents of jökulhlaups (outbreak floods from water-filled ice tunnels) at the glacier. The névés of Fox and Franz Josef glaciers has one of the world's highest precipitation levels: up to 15 m a year. In December 1965, after 280 mm of rain in two days, the Waiho River broke out of the glacier and carried chunks of ice downriver. These were still up to 50 cm across when they reached the Tasman Sea 20 km downstream. Another flood destroyed the access road bridge in 1989, followed by a further flood in April 1991. Torrential rain destroyed the bridge across the Waiho River in March 2019, and it took 18 days to replace it.

Westland Tai Poutini National Park is one of the few places in New Zealand with a full sequence of pristine landscapes from mountain peaks to the sea. The retreat of Franz Josef Glacier has allowed the native forest to colonise the bare rock left behind, and how long ago the glacier retreated can be read in the stage of plant succession present. Some bare rock was only exposed a decade ago, while other surfaces were exposed in 1951, 1830, 1750, and 1600.

Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are the most publicly accessible glaciers in New Zealand, and among the most accessible in the world – until recently, there was easy walking access directly to the glacier termini. Consequently, for over a century they have been a significant tourist attraction.

The glacier is associated with the Graham family, in particular mountaineers and guides Alec and Peter Graham and Rose Graham and historian Dorothy Fletcher (née Graham). Services in their hotel brought about the construction of St James Church.

Today the Franz Josef glacier area is the third-most-visited tourist spot in New Zealand, and one of the main tourist attractions on the West Coast. It had around 250,000 visitors a year in 2008, increasing to 700,000 a year (500,000 overnight) in 2017. It used to be possible to walk up to the glacier, but in March 2012 the terminal face of the glacier collapsed and it is now too dangerous to approach; signs warn against crossing the safety barriers at the lookout. As of 2020, the valley walk ends at a lookout about 50 m from the main terminal face of the glacier. Visiting the glacier now requires a helicopter flight past the unstable terminal face. Glacier walks also require some specialised equipment, namely ice axes and crampons that latch onto a sturdy boot. These are usually provided by tour companies.

As the walking part of any tour up to the glacier takes a long time, and ends at the first icefall (a frozen waterfall, draping a natural step in the land underneath), many tourists book helicopter tours from one of the several local airlines, which usually drop their guests between the first and second icefalls, for a guided 1–2 hour walk through the broken ground atop the glacier. Although the glacial landscape changes almost daily, given the glacier's unusually fast flow, and some walks including passages through ice tunnels, they are still considered quite safe and only somewhat strenuous. In June 2010, an Australian tourist died of a heart attack during a guided hike of the glacier.

An alternative option to view the glacier is via the 8-hour day hike up the 1,303 metres (4,275 ft) high Alex Knob, overlooking the Franz Josef Glacier and valley below. The path up Alex Knob is of good tramping track standard, but strenuous due to steeply climbing about 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) in height and considered "advanced" due to the duration of the hike.

At the entrance of the valley lies the village of Franz Josef, which has a permanent population of approximately 330 residents. It is situated 5 km from the glacier on State Highway 6 and has a petrol station, small but busy heliport, numerous tourist accommodation options (with up to 2,000 people staying overnight during the main season) and a number of restaurants and shops. Just south of the village, a sealed road leads from the highway into the Franz Josef Glacier valley and to a car park. Several small walks start from the Valley Road and the car park, and it is also possible to comfortably cycle from Franz Josef township to the car park.

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Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe is a 13-kilometre-long (8.1 mi) temperate maritime glacier located in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Like nearby Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, with a terminal face as low as 300 m above sea level, close to Fox Glacier village / Weheka. It is a major tourist attraction and about 1000 people daily visit it during high tourist season.

The glacier was known by local Māori as Te Moeka o Tuawe ('The bed of Tuawe'). According to oral tradition, Hine Hukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover Tuawe to climb with her. Tuawe was a less experienced climber than Hine Hukatere but loved to accompany her until an avalanche swept him from the peaks to his death. Hine Hukatere was broken-hearted and her many, many tears flowed down the mountain. Rangi the Sky Father took pity on her and froze them to form the glacier now known as Franz Josef; the glacier now known as Fox marks Tuawe's resting place.

In 1857 local Māori led Pākehā Leonard Harper and Edwin Fox to both glaciers, the first Europeans to see them. In 1865, German geologist Julius von Haast was the first to explore and survey the glaciers at the head of this valley, and named them Victoria and Albert, after the queen and her consort. The Victoria Glacier kept its name, but the lower part of the Albert Glacier was renamed in 1872 after a visit by then Premier of New Zealand Sir William Fox.

Explorer Charlie Douglas had already visited the glacier himself in the 1860s, looking for a cow. "In those ancient days I did not pay much attention to the glaciers," he later wrote.

With the passage of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, the glacier's name changed once again to Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe.

Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier descends 2,600 m (8,500 ft) on its 13 km journey from the Southern Alps towards the coast, finishing near rainforest 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level. After retreating for most of the previous 100 years, it advanced between 1985 and 2009. In 2006, the average rate of advance was about a metre a week. In January 2009, the terminal face of the glacier was still advancing and its vertical or overhanging faces regularly collapsed. Since then there has been a significant retreat, with the 2009 high level clearly visible as vegetation line on the southern slope above what is left of the lower glacier today.

The outflow of the glacier forms the Fox River. During the last ice age, its ice reached beyond the present coastline, and the glacier left behind many moraines during its retreat. Lake Matheson formed as a kettle lake within one of these.

In an 1890s report on "Tourist Attractions in the Okarito District", Charlie Douglas listed several sights in the Fox Glacier area, including the view from Malcolm's Knob at the mouth of the Cook River. "If the road was cleared up through to Cook's [Flat] it would be an easy day's stage through to the Fox Glacier; one day would do that place, thence down to Malcolms Knob and Gillespies," he wrote. He also noted the road between the farming settlement of Weheka at Fox Glacier and Waiho to the north (now Franz Josef) was very poor. "…when I came through that way, I left the track and took to the bush as being far better walking." By 1903 it had been improved and Dr Ebenezer Teichelmann described it as a good horse track.

Douglas had previously surveyed the glacier with A.P. Harper and William Wilson and had built the first hut there, known as the iron hut, near the 1896 glacier terminal.

In the 1920s Westland was being marketed as a tourist destination for the scenic vistas of its mountains, lakes and forests. Visitors to Weheka would stay in the Williams or Sullivan homesteads until in 1928 the Sullivan brothers opened the first hotel in the valley, the 40-room Fox Glacier Hostel (which, expanded and refurbished several times over the years, is still operating as a hotel).

Official glacier guiding began at this point, employing well-known mountaineers like Frank Alack, Harry Ayres, and Tom Christie. Access to the glacier was via a track along the north side of the Fox River valley and across a swingbridge. They could climb onto the ice at a lunch shelter at the Chalet Viewpoint, built in 1931 (and which burnt down in 1973). As the glacier retreated a gallery was built along the side of Cone Rock to allow access until it retreated still further. Eventually, the northern route became the main access road for tourists.

Chancellor Hut was built in 1930–31 on the southwest face of Chancellor Ridge, now 200 m above the glacier. Planned by mountain guides Alec and Peter Graham in 1929, all the materials had to be packed up Fox Glacier manually in 1930 in the days before helicopter airlifts. It is the oldest remaining mountain hut in the Southern Alps still on its original site and is a Category II Historic Building on the Heritage New Zealand list. At an altitude of 1200 m, it was designed to provide climbing opportunities to tourists, rather than as a staging post for mountaineers climbing on the Great Divide. A hut was also built at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) on Craig's Peak (6,000 feet (1,800 m)) for overnight climbing trips.

In the early 1930s and early 1940s roads were built up the northern and southern sides of the valley to improve access. The northern road led to the main car park for tourists who wanted to walk up to the glacier face, although barriers and warning signs prevented them from entering the "danger zone" close to the active glacier face. Safety warnings were ignored, however, by up to one-third of the 600,000 tourists a year visiting West Coast glaciers. Two Australian tourists were killed in January 2009 after they crossed safety barriers and walked 500 m to the terminal face to take photos. On 21 November 2015, seven people were killed when a Eurocopter Écureuil (squirrel) helicopter operated by Alpine Adventures crashed on the glacier.

On 26 March 2019 heavy rains caused flooding in the area, destroying the Waiho Bridge across State Highway 6 at Franz Josef. The rains also triggered an enormous landslide in the Fox River valley that washed away about 150 m of the northern glacier access road and destroyed the car park. The road had already been washed out several times in the previous year, and just two months previously it had been repaired at a cost of $430,000. The Alpine Gardens landslide comprises 50–70 million cubic metres of rock and as of October 2020 is still active, moving 100–700 mm a day. The road has been closed indefinitely, with no practical solutions available for repairing it, and access to the glacier is now by helicopter. To compensate for the closure of the access road, a $3.9 million spending package was announced in August 2019 for other tourism projects around Fox Glacier: extending a cycleway to Lake Matheson, upgrading and reopening the track to Lake Gault, improving the road and track access on the south side of the Fox River valley, and reopening the coastal walkway to Galway Beach north of Gillespies Beach.

Fossils

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Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Glacier
Wikidata ID:	Q1147722
GeoNames ID:	2190927

References