We packed early, walked down to the road and drove up to Franz Josef for a look at the lower part of the glacier. Brian had two 4 metre ablation stakes which needed to be redrilled and inserted deeper in the ice. We also wanted to record the position of the terminus with the GPS.
The glacier is spectacular at any time. Walking towards it we had to negotiate a boulder field of flood debris.
The true left of the glacier is covered with rock. This was from a time when dammed up water within the lake had burst out in a spectacular flood, spreading the debris all over the surface. Because of the debris cover, this part of the glacier has been protected from melting and has remained more or less static for a number of years whereas the true right of the glacier which has no rock cover, is retreating quite rapidly
Jake is using a hand drill to make a hole for inserting an ablation stake on Franz Josef Glacier