What is blue ice?

June 3, 2006. Franz Joseph, New Zealand.


"Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). During its travels, all of the air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it clear.
The blue color is often wrongly attributed to Rayleigh scattering. Actually, the ice is blue for the same reason water is blue. Namely, it is a result of an overtone of a OH molecular stretch in the water which absorbs light at the red end of the visible spectrum."
Source: Wikipedia
See also: http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/5C.html

Erik and I spent a day climbing up a glacier, Franz Joseph. (For the first time, I don't feel bad about not visiting Patagonia when I was in South America!) And boy were we lucky. It was pouring in the area the day before and the weather forecast suggested the same for us. Luckily, not a drop of rain was felt. But we still donned on waterproof jackets, (Mine was so big that it reached my knees. And when I tied it around my waist, it turned into a long skirt.) waterproof pants and cramp-ons.

This piece of ice was amazing. From looking at it, we thought the day would take us to the top. What we learned was that the top of the glacier is too dangerous to go on. Apparently, no one has gone there in years because there's so much daily movement on the ice that it'd be too dangerous. This glacier, the Fox Glacier down the street, are two of the very few glaciers in the world that are actually getting bigger. Most glaciers in the world recede because there is not enough snowfall at the top of the glacier to compensate for the melting at the bottom. This glacier is also famous because it drops to tropical forests near sea level -- not high up on the mountaintop.

Anyway, it was pretty amazing! The ice itself, as you can see, is beautiful and can be very blue. There were deep crevices around us, trenches to walk through and flat smooth ice to slip on. Our guides spent a good chunk of time axing away at the ice to create decent footholds for us. You'd think there would be more established footholds for the tourists, but since the ice changes everyday/night, the guides pretty much have to find new paths each day! How cool is that?!

And being who I am, I wanted the try chopping out ice. (The ice ax we were given was such a dud.) So I asked our extremely blonde guide (whose name I can't remember) to teach me. After several no-so-successful attempts at properly lifting the very heavy ax, I managed to chip away properly. (I have a video of this endeavor! hahaa)