Franz Josef Glacier is one of New Zealand's most unusual natural sights: a tongue of blue ice that flows down from the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps to just about 250 metres above sea level, surrounded by lush temperate rainforest. It's one of the few glaciers in the world that reaches almost into a damp forest of ferns and mosses: there are very few places on the planet where ice and rainforest sit this close together.
The glacier lies inside Westland Tai Poutini National Park, part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area, on the wild, rainy West Coast of the South Island. The star experience is the heli-hike: a helicopter flight that drops you on the ice, in areas you can't reach on foot, to walk in crampons among crevasses, seracs and blue ice caves, led by expert guides. It's the way to experience the glacier from the inside, since walking access to the glacier's terminal face has been closed for safety for years.
This guide takes a practical look at Franz Josef: how to get there (no train, no airport), how much the heli-hike costs and what the alternatives are if the weather won't let you fly (the valley walk, scenic flights, hot pools), how many days to stay to get a window of good weather, and how things work in a place where it rains all the time but where, when the sky clears, the glacier shines blue among the rainforest. A must on the West Coast.
The glacier's European name comes from the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I, and was given by the German geologist Julius von Haast in 1865. But its Māori name is much older and more poetic: Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere, 'the tears of Hine Hukatere', from the legend of a young woman whose beloved, Wawe, fell from the mountains; her tears, frozen by the gods, formed the glacier. The area is the rohe of the Ngāi Tahu iwi, who travelled the West Coast (Te Tai Poutini) in search of pounamu (greenstone). The national park was created in 1960 and in 1990 became part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The wild western coast of the South Island, ancestral home of Ngāi Tahu pounamu (greenstone), transformed by the 1864 gold rush and by coal. A remote rainforest shoreline where the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers come down almost to the sea, and where the stacked rocks of Punakaiki stand.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before any European laid eyes on this river of ice, Māori already knew it and had given it a name full of feeling: Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere, 'the tears of Hine Hukatere'. The legend comes from the Ngāi Tahu iwi. It tells of Hine Hukatere, a young woman who loved the mountains and talked her beloved, Wawe, into climbing the heights of the Southern Alps with her. Wawe had less experience in the mountains, and on the way down an avalanche swept him away and killed him. Hine Hukatere was heartbroken and cried so much that her tears, shed on the mountain, were frozen by the gods (or by the cold of the peaks) until they became the glacier we know today. In this beautiful story, the blue ice flowing down towards the rainforest is a woman's endless grief for the love she lost.
This legend is more than poetry. It shows how well Māori knew this landscape and how deep their spiritual bond with it was. The west coast of the South Island, called Te Tai Poutini or Te Tai o Poutini, was the territory (rohe) of the Ngāi Tahu iwi (and before them of Waitaha and Kāti Māmoe). They travelled it along ancestral routes over the alpine passes and down the coast.
What drew Māori to the west coast above all was pounamu, the jade or greenstone of New Zealand. This sacred and highly prized material was found in the region's rivers. Pounamu was used to make tools, weapons (such as the feared mere) and ornaments (such as the hei-tiki), and it was traded across the whole of New Zealand. So although the west coast was a harsh, rainy and hard-to-reach land, it was enormously valuable, and Māori made long and dangerous journeys to get this precious stone. The Māori name for the South Island, Te Waipounamu, means exactly that: 'the waters of greenstone'.
The first European on record to see and describe the glacier was the German geologist and explorer Julius von Haast, one of the leading figures in the scientific exploration of 19th-century New Zealand. In 1865, Haast travelled through this part of the west coast as part of his geological surveys of the provinces of Canterbury and Westland. He was struck by a glacier that came down almost into the rainforest and decided to name it Franz Josef, after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The choice reflected the explorer's European roots and loyalties.
That is how the glacier got its European name. For a long time that name stood alone, and the Māori name had no official recognition at all. Only much later, in the 21st century, was the Māori name given official status again. Today the glacier carries both names, Franz Josef Glacier / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere, which honours both the European history and the deep Māori heritage of the place.
European explorers were fascinated by a remarkable geographical quirk. Fed by the huge snowfalls of the Southern Alps, Franz Josef Glacier drops very steeply to just 250-300 metres above sea level and reaches almost into the lowland temperate rainforest. It is one of very few places in the world where a temperate-latitude glacier comes so close to a damp forest full of ferns and mosses. This rarity, with ice and rainforest almost touching, is what made Franz Josef, together with nearby Fox Glacier, a natural attraction famous around the world.
Franz Josef Glacier is unusually dynamic. It moves, advances and retreats at striking speeds, responding to changes in snowfall and temperature within just a few years. Through the 20th and early 21st centuries the glacier went through several cycles. It retreated a long way for much of the 20th century, but between the 1980s and the 2000s it went through a phase of strong advance, growing by hundreds of metres. That made it an even more spectacular sight, with the ice tongue reaching well down the valley.
From around 2008, however, the glacier entered a phase of rapid retreat, losing a large amount of ice and pulling back up the valley. Anyone walking the valley can see this retreat. Signs along the track mark where the ice tongue reached in different years, and the gap between those points and where the glacier is now is striking, first-hand evidence of global warming. Scientists warn that if the trend continues, glaciers like Franz Josef and Fox could retreat dramatically in the coming decades.
All this movement also has a dangerous side. The glacier's terminal face and the valley are very active areas. Blocks of ice fall, rock slides come down from the valley walls and the meltwater river can rise suddenly. For many years, guides took visitors walking on the glacier tongue itself, reached on foot from the valley. But after several serious and fatal accidents caused by collapses, foot access to the tongue was closed for safety. Today the only way to set foot on the ice is to fly by helicopter (heli-hike) to the higher, more stable sections, always with expert guides. The glacier demands respect: it is a force of nature that never stops changing.
Formal protection for this natural treasure came in 1960 with the creation of Westland National Park (now Westland Tai Poutini National Park). It covers the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, the mountains of the Southern Alps, the lowland temperate rainforest and a strip of wild coastline. The park protects a remarkable ecological gradient, running from snowy peaks and glaciers down to rainforest and the sea in just a few kilometres. In 1990, Westland Tai Poutini became part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area, together with Fiordland, Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring national parks. UNESCO recognised the area for its outstanding natural value and as an exceptional example of the geological and evolutionary history of Gondwana.
The township of Franz Josef grew up around tourism, which became the area's economic engine. Through the 20th and 21st centuries, it changed from a remote outpost of explorers and jade hunters into an international destination. Crowds now come for the helicopter flights, the ice walks and the beauty of the rainforest and mountains. Along with this came new challenges: managing the impact of tourism, keeping people safe in a dangerous setting, and protecting threatened species such as the rowi, the world's rarest kiwi, which is bred at the West Coast Wildlife Centre in town.
As everywhere on the South Island, the history of Franz Josef is bound up with the long process of redress to the Ngāi Tahu iwi. Unjust land purchases in the 19th century stripped Ngāi Tahu of much of their territory and resources, including access to the west coast's pounamu. After more than a century of claims, the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998 brought a formal apology from the Crown and compensation. Crucially for the west coast, it also returned ownership and control of the region's pounamu to Ngāi Tahu, recognising their ancestral relationship with this sacred stone. Today the glacier's dual name, Franz Josef / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere, stands for that recognition. It tells the story of a European explorer and an Austrian emperor, yes, but also, and above all, of the eternal tears of Hine Hukatere, frozen in the ice, which Māori saw long before anyone else.
