Te Moeka o Tuawe - Fox Glacier New Zealand
Fox Glacier was the destination of our Berwick-to-West Coast leg of our holidays on the way to Little Wanganui much further up the coast. We overnighted there which gave me the chance to do some walks.
The weather was not great but cleared enough to make a walk to the terminal face worthwhile.
One of two neighbouring glaciers in South Westland (The other is the Franz Joseph glacier) that have the unusual feature (worldwide) of decending from high altitude neves to within the boundaries of temperate rainforest only a few hundred metres above sealevel. While generally in retreat the glacier has cyclical growth and retreat cycles. When I worked on the West coast some 12 years ago the glacier was advancing rapidly and was much further down the valley than where it was when these photos were taken on December 27 2009. It takes about five years for snowfall patterns in the high neves to impact on the ebb and flow of the glacier in the valley. So the current retreat is probably due to low snow falls some five years ago. The glacier was very active with loud noises and frequent icefalls and the outlet river in flood and full of large pieces of ice.
Te Moeka o Tuawe - Fox Glacier New Zealand
Fox Glacier was the destination of our Berwick-to-West Coast leg of our holidays on the way to Little Wanganui much further up the coast. We overnighted there which gave me the chance to do some walks.
The weather was not great but cleared enough to make a walk to the terminal face worthwhile.
One of two neighbouring glaciers in South Westland (The other is the Franz Joseph glacier) that have the unusual feature (worldwide) of decending from high altitude neves to within the boundaries of temperate rainforest only a few hundred metres above sealevel. While generally in retreat the glacier has cyclical growth and retreat cycles. When I worked on the West coast some 12 years ago the glacier was advancing rapidly and was much further down the valley than where it was when these photos were taken on December 27 2009. It takes about five years for snowfall patterns in the high neves to impact on the ebb and flow of the glacier in the valley. So the current retreat is probably due to low snow falls some five years ago. The glacier was very active with loud noises and frequent icefalls and the outlet river in flood and full of large pieces of ice.