Saturday 11/6- We take a short hike to the falls at Skaftafell, take some pictures, trespass a little bit (I started it because I wanted to get closer to the falls), the usual. Next we take a ride up the coast to the Glacial lagoon. We see some of the ice from the icebergs fall with a terrifying crash into the ocean lagoon. I definitely jumped and probably yelped. We even saw a few wild seals in the water. The icebergs (what you can see above the water anyway) were this really really blue color, and had ash on the top from the most recent Grimsvolt volcano eruption. We continued on to Skogar, where we would start the Fimmvörðuháls trek the next morning. On the way we made a stop at a mountain cliff that Orri knew had a secret trail up to the top. It was probably the most technical climb I've ever done, and I still think it was more challenging than the hike we were warned about, though it was a much shorter climb. At the top were some ruins of a farm, and we found engravings with someone's name and the date on the rock that looked like it was from 1890. At one point you had to leap over a 2 foot gap and cling to rock to not fall off the cliff. Icelanders (or maybe just Orri) are truly fearless, they will climb whatever, do what they want, not follow the very few signs that limit where you can walk and what you can and can't do. Live and do at your own risk. Dinner at the campsite, no bonfires, just a grill and 300ISK for a 3minute shower. At least the bathrooms were decent and there was a lot of counter space to prepare food.
Sunday 12/6- We eat breakfast, and then pack up for the hike of our lives. Up what seems like over a hundred stairs alongside a waterfall at the foot of the trail just beyond our campsite, and then (generally) gradual ascent to the peak, which still had snow on it. This trek is between two active volcanoes- Eyjafjallajökull the volcano that erupted two years ago and caused all the airport delays, and Katla, one of the biggest volcanos that has been overdue to erupt for over a hundred years. The trek itself was unlike anything I've ever done. The sense of scale is just incredible. You are literally alone in the wilderness, so vulnerable, so aware of your tired legs, your thirst, the heat from the sun on your back, the wind. The landscape is beautiful. The river follows the trail to the left, and has something like a dozen waterfalls along the way. Parts of the trail got pretty technical, there was some narrow paths with a cliff on one side if you didn't cling to the rocks on the other. I'm still surprised we all made it through relatively unscathed. I was definitely thankful that Orri met us at the cabin meeting point to guide us to the bottom into the national reserve of Þórsmörk. Climbing up, ever more up a glacier in a cloud was probably the low point... I just was ready to descend already, and to get out of the slushy snow. Once we cleared the fog we trekked on further to the volcano crater, from Eyjafjallajokull. Orri lit a cigar with the magma, and the boys in the group grilled hot dogs just by digging into the ground with a glacier pick. The smell of sulfur at the top of the lava mountain that formed after the eruption was overwhelming, and the colors of the earth even more shocking. Reds and yellows, porous, light-as-air black rock. It was actually warm to sit on, even as high up as we were. Steam spilled around the crater like weird smoke clouds. Just feet beneath our feet, the earth was a molten magma mess, churning and shifting, violently cooling towards the surface. It was totally an adrenaline rush to be trekking on top of this.
On the decent, a group of us chose to glissade down the mountain on a steep patch of snow, and take the "shortcut" to the campsite, instead of going the long way across the plateau. Turns out it wasn't so much a short cut, but it was an incredible view and incredibly difficult, amazing trail, across cliffs, around streams and mini waterfalls through a gigantic valley, on top of sheets of ice that inches below gave way to sizeable streams which flowed into the river. I even sunk through the ice at one point, fell a few feet but managed to get back up. By the end of the hike down into the town of our campsite, my palms were raw from clinging to rock and catching myself when I lost my footing crossing the steeper gravelly parts of the cliffs.
That night after our hobo dinners, we introduced Orri and some of his friends' kids to s'mores, which was super cute.
Monday, we forded like 7 streams and stopped at a waterfall that you could walk behind. We also stopped at a turf house museum, and the hydropower interactive museum, which was super high tech and really interesting. But maybe just not worth writing about in here. Not compared to the trek of my life!
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