The Rob Roy Glacier is a small

hanging glacier A hanging glacier originates high on the wall of a glacial valley and descends only part of the way to the surface of the main glacier and abruptly stops, typically at a cliff. Avalanching and icefall An icefall is a portion of certain glaciers ...

in the

Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) is a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The name "Southern ...

of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. It is located within the

Mount Aspiring National Park Mount Aspiring National Park is in the Southern Alps of the South Island of New Zealand, north of Fiordland National Park, situated in Otago and Westland regions. The park forms part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. Geography Establis ...

, south of

Mount Aspiring / Tititea Mount Aspiring / Tititea is New Zealand's 23rd-highest mountain. It is the country's highest outside the Aoraki / Mount Cook region. Description Set within Otago's Mount Aspiring National Park, it has a height of . Māori named it ''Tititea'', ...

. The glacier covers the steep slopes of the mountains surrounding the head of the Rob Roy Valley. The most prominent part of the glacier is on the northwestern side of the valley on the slopes below the tall Rob Roy Peak. This part of the glacier extends from just below Rob Roy Peak down to a bench high on the valley's side where it abruptly breaks over the cliff's edge at around . The glacier covers most of the headwalls encircling the valley, except the eastern side where the bordering peaks are all just below . The spring melt causes frequent small avalanches, and

serac A serac (from Swiss French ''sérac'') is a block or column of glacial ice, often formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier. Commonly house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to mountaineers, since they may topple with little warning. Even ...

s breaking off the glacier's terminal face on the northwestern side of the valley. Bigger blocks of ice can tumble and crash all the way to the valley floor.Information panel at the lookout at the end of the Rob Roy Valley Track, Department of Conservation NZ

History

In the distant past, Rob Roy Glacier extended not only to fill all of the Rob Roy Valley, but flowed into the large Matukituki Glacier at the peak of the last ice age around 20,000 years ago. The Matukituki Glacier later combined with the Wanaka Glacier, also non-existent anymore, to form a continuous river of ice all the way down the Clutha Valley to close to where Cromwell is now. Now all that remains of Rob Roy Glacier is a hanging glacier at the

valley head The head of the valley or, less commonly, the valley head, refers to the uppermost part of a valley.Leser (2005), p. 935. Description The head of a valley may take widely differing forms; for example, in highland regions the valley often ends i ...

. The Rob Roy Valley leading out into the Matukituki Valley is now covered with lush

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

forest and an open understory of ferns and mosses. The forest supports small birds such as

fantail Fantails are small insectivorous songbirds of the genus ''Rhipidura'' in the family Rhipiduridae, native to Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the species are about long, specialist aerial feeders, and named as "f ...

tomtit The tomtit (''Petroica macrocephala'') is a small passerine bird in the family Petroicidae The bird family Petroicidae includes 51 species in 19 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific ...

and

rifleman A rifleman is an infantry soldier armed with a rifling, rifled long gun. Although the rifleman role had its origin with 16th century hand cannoneers and 17th century musketeers, the term originated in the 18th century with the introduction o ...

, while above the tree line

kea The kea (; ; ''Nestor notabilis'') is a species of large parrot in the family Nestoridae found in the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. About long, it is mostly olive-green with a brilliant orange under its wings ...

can be heard and seen regularly. Rob Roy Peak was named after Scottish hero

Rob Roy MacGregor Robert Roy MacGregor ( gd, Raibeart Ruadh MacGriogair; 7 March 1671 – 28 December 1734) was a Scottish outlaw, who later became a folk hero. Early life Rob Roy was born in the Kingdom of Scotland at Glengyle, at the head of Loch Katrine, a ...

when the first Europeans began exploring this area and began farming in the Matukituki Valley in the 1870s.

Tourism

Rob Roy Glacier has a history of attracting expeditions and tourists for over 100 years. Since the 1920s, access across Mt Aspiring Station into Mount Aspiring National Park has been allowed by four generations of the Aspinall family. The Rob Roy Valley Track is a popular walk of 3-4 hours return and leads to a sub-alpine basin at the valley head and a lookout across the valley to Rob Roy Glacier. Apart from the drive to get there, it is the most easily accessible glacier in the region. About 20,000 people visit Rob Roy Glacier per year. The walking track starts at the Raspberry Creek car park and shelter at the end of the Wanaka Mount Aspiring Road, which is unsealed for the last and a "fine weather only" road for the very last 10 kilometres, crossing seven fords. The track starts off on farmland and then crosses the Matukituki River via a

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...

before following Rob Roy Stream to climb Information panel at Matukituki River swing bridge, Department of Conservation NZ up into the Rob Roy Valley. The end point is a lookout just above the tree line overlooking the valley head and across the valley to Rob Roy Glacier dramatically breaking over the rock ledge towering high above on the other side of the valley. Avalanches and ice blocks breaking off the glacier's terminal face are a regular sight in spring, and kea can often be heard and seen flying above. Also clearly visible are the tall Rob Roy Falls, free-falling down a sheer cliff face south of Rob Roy Glacier. On cold sunny days, the meltwater from the glacier and snow on the sunlit slopes above can re-freeze as it falls through the cold air in the shade of the cliff, depositing again as ice and snow at the base of the waterfall. The walking track is publicly accessible for independent walking, but can also be done as part of a guided tour from Wanaka. A regular shuttle service for trampers is also available, as Raspberry Creek shelter is also the start of longer hiking trails into Mount Aspiring National Park. In 2015, wingsuit flier David Walden leapt from a cliff at the top of Rob Roy Low Peak (2560 m) and was the first person to fly over Rob Roy Glacier and into the valley below via BASE jumping.

References

{{reflist Glaciers of New Zealand Mount Aspiring National Park

History

Tourism

See also

References