Franz Josef Glacier
Franz Josef Glacier is a 12km long, 7000-year-old body of ice sliding down a mountain valley into a rainforest.
This combination of ice and temperate rainforest is a unique feature of New Zealand's glacier country, and is an ecosystem found nowhere else in the world. Franz Josef, in the Westland National Park, is also New Zealand’s steepest and fastest moving glacier.
It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range formed along the New Zealand alpine fault line, and the glacier oozes almost to the sea. The cold air from the Roaring Forties comes off the Southern Ocean, hits the Alps and drops huge loads of rain and snow, creating some of the world’s most dynamic glaciers.
Geologist and explorer Julius von Haast named Franz Josef Glacier in 1863, after the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Further information:
Franz Josef Glacier Guides
Phone: +64 3 752 0763
Fax: +64 3 752 0102
Email: walks@franzjosefglacier.com
Destination Fiordland
Shevaun Taberner
Phone +64 3 249 7959
Fax +64 3 249 7949
Email shevaun@fiordland.org.nz
These topics may also be of interest to you
|
