In August 2008 Heather and I took a trip to Iceland. Our trip to Iceland came about primarily because of the International Association of Volcanism and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior conference that Heather was planning on attending. I wanted to tag along because I had always wanted to explore Iceland ever since I was read stories of the Norse gods and studied the country in grade school. We arrived in Reykjavik at noon and checked into our guesthouse accommodation. After lunch at a rooftop cafe on Laugavegur Street, which is the main street in the city, we walked around a lake that was next to the city center. There were beautiful views of the city as we walked around the lakeside. We passed colorful houses with hanging flower baskets. Given Reykjavik’s reputation for intense nightlife and high fashion business people, we were pleasantly surprised by the two lane cobblestone streets and cyclists with cute bike baskets wearing business suits. But... Reykjavik was just a jumping off point for us.
We ditched some of our luggage in the guesthouse lobby and took off for Landmannalaugar, the starting point of our 4 day backpacking trip in southwestern Iceland. The trail from Landmannalaugar to Thorsmork is known as the Laugeravegeriunn and is probably one of the most popular multi-day hikes in Iceland. Because of this we encountered people everywhere and each camp site was filled with at least 15 tents, not to mention the people that stayed in the huts. People on the trail were from everywhere: Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain, Australia, and the US. We even ran into a friend of ours from Mexico, Nick Varley, who was attending the same conference as Heather. I volunteered for a month with Nick in Mexico and Heather joined us in order to collect breadcrust bombs from Volcan de Colima during her PhD. Nick was enjoying a day hike around Landmannalaugar and we continued on to the first hut of the trip at Hrafntinnusker. The first days hike gave us incredible views of the painted rhyolite hills and of the obsidian and lava flows that covered parts of the glacial valley. We walked past several fumaroles in the Storihver area where the smell of sulfur and steam filled the air. Our second day was a dramatic descent from the ash covered volcanic hills and thermal area down into a broad and lush green glacial valley. We had our first of several river crossings on our trip as we entered the valley. We didn’t have water slippers or sandals, so we waded across the cold glacial stream hand in hand and in our bare feet, each one pulling on the other in order to maintain balance, but in effect pulling the other off balance and thus resulting in more pushing and pulling. By the time we reached the other side our feet were numb or nearly there. When our feet dried we were off again and hiked through the valley until we reached Lake Alftavatn hut. Our third day was a day of little relief, as we hiked along the ash-covered valley floor all day. We had only one river to ford by foot, all the other crossings were gorges where the river had cut into lava flows, exposing the striking columnar basalts and spectacular waterfalls. We lunched at one of the waterfalls and ate some of what seemed like an endless bag of sweets given to us by Didi. The bag had an incredible assortment of gummy candies and Dutch licorice and the sugar certainly helped us through some of the more tiring days of our hike. The days hike ended at the Emstrur hut with excellent views of Myrdalsjokull glacier. After dinner we did a short hike to the nearby Markarfljotsgljufur canyon. The canyon is over 180m deep in places and exposed successions of massive lava and ash flow units. The canyon was about half as wide as it was deep and the views from the edge were staggering. It was one of my favorite scenic spots in Iceland. On our last day of the hike, we spent most of the day hiking along the gorge and then finally crossing a section of the Markarfljot River that was braided and entering the first forest of our trip. Heather got us lost following a horse track that faded off into the scrub, but after backtracking we were soon back on the trail and on our way to Thorsmork. When we arrived in Thorsmork we set up our tent and then soaked in a tepid thermal pool. We enjoyed the relaxing soak and managed to have enough energy to hike up the hill on the valley’s edge. The valley below was a wide glacial outwash plain with channels of a braided river flowing in and out of each other. Thorsmork was a green oasis nestled on the edge of this valley, protected from high water during flooding by a two meter berm that surrounded the staff houses and holiday cabins.
Our drive out of Thorsmork back to Reykjavic was by bus. This was no ordinary bus. This bus was jacked-up and given monster truck-like tires in order to easily cross all of the channels of the braided river on the outwash plain. On the drive out we saw several small glaciers flowing off of the main Myrdalsjokull glacier and several waterfalls along the steep cliffs of the valley wall. The bus drove on and stopped at several towns along the way to pick up and drop off additional travelers at various stages of their journeys. We began to recognize a few volcanologists faces and thought to each other “it begins”, as geologists returned to Reykjavic from their personal travels for the big conference.
We returned to Reykjavic by noon and checked into our hotel room and had lunch. For lunch Heather had a ham sandwich and I had a dish called plokkfiskur, which is the Icelandic equivalent to meatloaf, so it’s a creative way to prepare leftovers and everyone makes it differently. Plokkfiskur is a fish and potato mash made of leftover fish (typically cod) from the previous meal. This dish was so tasty, I had it again for dinner! Heather registered for the conference and I joined her for the conference sponsored booze-up.
The next day Heather was well into conference mode, so I decided to venture out on my own for the next four days:
After Heather left in the morning, I went shopping for food for the next few days of my trip. A block of cheese, klingur (flakey Icelandic bagels), peanut butter, whole grain crackers, apples, peanuts and raisins, and of course chocolate were all easily available at the Bonus market. Bonus has a great sign outside all of its bright yellow-painted stores, a giant pink piggy bank!
Lunch was a pylsa with the works. Who knew that the Icelanders did hot dogs so well? On my way back to the apartment I spotted a tiny shack tucked between a couple large buildings. The shack had a long line of locals, so I figured now was my chance to try this country’s favorite fast food. I got a single dog with the works, which consisted of a steamed bun with a squirt of ketchup, a sprinkle of fried dried onion, fresh chopped onion, the dog, and a squirt of brown sweet mustard and a squirt of remoulade side by side. The taste was heaven. I found out later that the Guardian named this the best hotdog shack in all of Europe! And to back up that award, there was a picture of the elderly proprietor and none other than Bill Clinton, one of the most famous junk food connoisseurs, with a dog in hand.
After a long wait at the Reykjavic domestic terminal (I got there way too early, who knew that they didn’t even check people in until a half hour before departure?), I was on the plane north to the second largest city in Iceland, Akureyri. I spent the night in the Akureyri campground and then took a shuttle from town to Asbyrgi the next day. Legend says that Asbyrgi was formed when Odin’s horse Sleipnir touched the earth with his hoof and made the elliptical indentation in the ground. Byrgi translates as a protected enclosure or a fortification. Asbyrgi is a semi-enclosed topographic depression, where a glacial outburst flood eroded into the broad basaltic plain. It’s located right next to the settlement of As, hence… Asbyrgi. I started my hike following the rim of the cliff, but then shortly left the area to hike towards the Jokulsa a Fjollum River. The terrain was barren and undulating. There were giant potholes everywhere despite the great distance from any high-energy river. This area has been repeatedly scoured by jokulhlaups, giant glacial outburst floods, over the past hundreds of years. It used to be a well forested fertile area with a large and powerful chief, but the historical floods decimated the area, destroying the livelihood of families living there. Jokulhlaup flood waters accumulate subglacially and are confined due to restriction of outflow by the glacier itself. They can accumulate more rapidly because of thermal activity from a geothermal vent or an erupting volcano. When the glacier eventually moves and the subglacial water rushes out, large areas downstream of the glacier can be covered in a matter of hours. Very powerful stuff!
My hike for the rest of the day was along the Jokulsa a Fjollum River, passing by spectacular columnar basalt formations left behind by the jokulhlaups. These undulating and planar dykes were all that remained after the floods washed away all the loose volcanic material. After my night at the Vesturdalur campsite, I set out for Dettifoss waterfall and a bus to my next destination, the Krafla volcanic field. At the start of the hike, I walked through a vibrant green heath called Holmatungur filled with multiple small waterfalls. From here, I hiked along the river, passing the Hafragilsfoss waterfall and gorge. The end of my hike was at Dettifoss waterfall and, 1.5km upstream, Selfoss waterfall. Dettifoss is described as being Europe’s most powerful waterfall and at 44m high it was kicking up quite a spray. Selfoss is only 11m high, but is equally as incredible as it stretches obliquely across the river.
From the falls I took a short bus ride to the Krafla volcanic field. The most recent eruption at Krafla lasted almost ten years when a giant fissure formed in 1975 and continued to erupt at varying intensity until finally stopping in 1984. The lava flows from this eruption covered a vast area and there is still steam rising from the basalt flows today. Krafla is located on top of the MidAtlantic rift, so as the North American and Eurasian Plates pull apart from each other, lava erupts through the resulting fractures. Also in this area is a large geothermal plant. There are many drill holes throughout the field, with an insulated pipeline carrying the hot steam/water to the main plant further down the valley. I spent the night commando camping to the east of Krafla, well hidden and with a brilliant view of the recent lava flows.
The next day I trundled into the town of Reykyalith, which is on the northeastern shore of Lake Myvatn. Myvatn means midge or fly water, so I was wary of all the buggies that would be there to greet me. The lake is reputedly teeming with flies and their larvae, which are the preferred food for many unique species of waterfowl that flock to the lake area. Fortunately for me the wind was strong enough throughout the day that I wasn’t pestered once by a hungry fly. When I entered town I was ready for a decent meal, but I didn’t feel like spending lots of cash, which is easy to do in Iceland. I walked into a cafe and ordered the local specialty of lamb soup with a thick buttered slice of hverabrauth. This dark and sweet bread is baked locally not in ovens, but in metal boxes buried in a local thermal field. The dough is poured into milk cartons and left to sit overnight and slowly bake until done. The sweet moist bread reminded me a lot of the canned B&M brown bread we used to have on camping trips growing up. The soup was great and they offered a bottomless bowl, perfect to fill a tired hiker’s belly. I left town and hiked south along the rift zone, stopping by a couple of thermal pools and climbing up a giant cinder cone called Hverfell. From the summit of the cone there were incredible views of the lake and the numerous pseudocraters that dot its shoreline. Pseudocraters are formed when lava flows into a lake and heats the water in the ground below it and causes a phreatic eruption and thus forming a crater. That evening I camped near Dimmuborgir, which is a lava formation caused by the cooling and draining of a large lava lake. The area had many lava pillars and caves formed during the cooling and draining of the molten lake.
The following day I had a walk down the road to the town of Skutustathir on the southern end of Lake Myvatn. Here there used to be a powerful chief that thwarted many assassination attempts against him with the aid of a trusty axe named Fluga (“Fly”). There were also several psuedocraters on the lakeside, so I hiked around there for a little while before going into the local cafe for another meal of a bottomless bowl of lamb soup and bread. While eating lunch I had the pleasure of watching the Icelandic handball team win their game against Spain, qualifying for the Olympic gold medal match against France. The locals were glued to the television and no one left until the Icelanders had won the match. Unfortunately they lost the gold medal match to France, but were still considered national heroes after bringing home the silver. After the match I caught the shuttle back to Akureyri. We passed beautiful trout fishing spots on a shallow river just off the main road on our way back. I also saw some hunters drive by wearing camo green and several geese tossed in the bed of their truck. When I returned to Akureyri I had just enough time before my flight to Reykjavic to have a soak in the municipal pool. Almost every town in Iceland has a local pool. These pools are heated by geothermal waters, so they often also have hot tubs and steam rooms. Akureyri’s pool was incredible, with several hot tubs, a steam room, a water slide, and water jets you sit under to be pummeled/massaged by the water. I alternated sitting in the 43 degree Celsius hot tub and sitting under the pummeling jets of water. It was a dream for my sore muscles. Revived and relaxed after my soak, I hopped on the plane to Reykjavic to meet Heather and some other folks from the University of Oregon on the start of the Friday night runtur. The runtur is the all night club hopping party that many young Icelanders participate in every weekend. Cafes that were serving dinners at 10PM turn into wild night clubs by 11 and the party goes well into the morning hours. I was pretty tired from my hike, so I called it an early night at midnight. Heather and the rest of the crew stayed out later, with some people out until 4 or 5 in the morning.
The next morning was rainy and windy, but we got into our new rental car and drove around what is called the Golden Circle. This is a driving tour that easily takes in three major sites only a day out from Reykjavic. The first site we stopped at was at Thingvellir National Park. This park is the site of the world’s oldest democratic parliament. Established in 930 AD the Althing was the gathering place for people to take up cases against those who wronged them. Often the offenders had to make some kind of payment to their accusers or they could be expelled from the country overseas for several years or declared an outcast and marked for death or hanged or drowned (in the case of women accused of infanticide). The site of the Althing is also in the North Atlantic rift zone, forming a linear zone between the rifting plates. The steep cliffs were essential for business at the Althing, as the voices of the people making their cases were easily heard when reflected off the basalt walls. On our walk around, we ran into Lucy, Steve, Mark, and Mark’s brother Simon, who we planned on meeting at the end of the day for our hike up Hekla the next day. After walking in the rain and getting soaked to the bone, we hopped into the car and drove to our second site, which was the geothermal field at Geysir. The namesake of geysirs all around the world is located here. Unfortunately Geysir erupts only twice a day, so we didn’t expect to see anything. However, the Strokkur geysir erupts every six minutes, so we were able to stick around to see several watery eruptions. On our way out of the parking area we ran into Nick Deardorff who was looking a bit tired after recovering from a long night on the runtur and an early wake up call. Back in the car, we drove on to the final spot on the Golden Circle, Gullfoss. This is the massive waterfall where the river runs down two cascades. The spray from the fall and the rain soaked us easily, so it was with much pleasure that we hopped back into the car. We saw two cyclists attempting to set up their tent in the wind and the rain and sympathized with their struggle, but were happy to have our own warm place protected from the elements. Before we left we ran into two other U of O alumni, Diana and Jonathan. From Gullfoss we drove the rest of the day to Hotel Leirubakki, in order to meet Lucy and the rest of the Hekla crew. It was still rainy and windy, so we were reluctant to spend the night in the tent. As we were about to inquire about rooms available for the night, the couple that arrived just before us grabbed the last room, so with the decision made, we set up the tent, grabbed a tasty dinner and slept soundly amongst the improving weather conditions.
By morning the weather had cleared and even the summit of Hekla was relatively clear with the wispy clouds passing over and occasionally getting snagged by the volcano’s peak. We decided to have a go at the summit, so Lucy and her crew drove their 4WD and we drove our trusty 2WD Peugot down the rough dirt track. The hotel proprietor convinced us that a 2WD vehicle could make most of the trip granted that they drive slowly and carefully. Heather dug her fingernails into the dashboard during the drive, gasping, cringing, and wincing at the slightest sound of scrapping on the undercarriage of the car. Despite the tense ride, the little Peugot did a knock-up job for 99% of the track. We realized that the final stretch would have been near impossible, so we parked it and drove the rest of the way crammed in the 4WD. The start of the hike gave us incredible views of the valley below, but as we climbed higher we entered the clouds and the snow that dusted the summit during the night became thicker. The higher we climbed the worse the weather got. By the time we reached the summit it was blowing a gale and freezing cold. We even considered turning around due to the weather, but 5 minutes later, to our surprise, we were at the summit. Following a quick photo and signing the guest book with frozen fingers, we started our rapid descent. On the way down it started to hail, but we were soon out of the snow and back into the sun below the clouds. After we returned to the car Lucy and her crew decided to do a quick trip to Landmannalaugar and we drove off and continued east to spend the night at Skaftafell National Park. After a less treacherous drive out on the dirt track, we were soon on our way out to the park. On our way east we drove by the turnoff to Thorsmork, passed through a quaint town called Vik, drove over the largest recorded lava flow from a single eruption (12 cubic km from the 1783 Laki eruption), and drove for hours on the flat glacial outwash plain (or sandar) of the coast. These outwash plains are also subjected to the occasional jokulhlaup, albeit from different volcanoes. There was a jokulhlaup in1996 when Grimsvotn volcano erupted underneath the Vatnajokull glacier resulting in the destruction of much of the highway in its path, leaving behind only the twisted iron girders of what was once a bridge. After the hike up Hekla and a long day driving we were pretty beat, so as soon as we set up the tent in the park campground, we went right to bed.
The next day we wanted to attempt to summit Kristinartindar Mountain, which is just to the north of the park campground and would have given us an excellent view of the glaciers in the area. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating, so we stayed low and decided a new route for our hike. We wandered past Svartifoss waterfall, a much photographed waterfall, where the water freely cascades 15 meters off of a lip of lava on a wall of thick basaltic columns. From here we hiked to the northwest with the Morsarjokull glacier as our goal for the day. We hiked along the edge of valley, trying to avoid the boggy part of the trail. We eventually reached Morsarlon lake at the mouth of Morsarjokull glacier. We had spectacular views of rainbows spanning the lake filled with mini icebergs. While we sat to have our lunch we even heard the glacier crack and groan on the mountainside. On our hike out, we walked along the glacial outwash plain and rounded the corner to the campground. I handily won the guess-exactly-what-time-we-arrive-at-camp competition, despite Heather slowing down considerably to make our arrival time closer to the time that she had guessed. Nice try Heather.
The next morning we got up and decided to drive to see a much larger glacial lagoon called Jokulsarlon. Once there Heather managed to convince me that a trip on an amphibious vehicle would be first-rate, so they piled onto the vehicle and had a tour of the lagoon. While the vehicle floated around the lagoon, two small inflatable motorboats frantically swerved along the vehicle’s projected path in order to clear the water of ice that could potentially get sucked into the vehicle’s propeller. We got a chance to suck on a piece of one thousand year old ice plucked from the lagoon by the tour guide. Yummy. After the tour, we got into the car and drove west on our way back towards Reykjavic.
Before returning to the capital we had plans to spend a night in the town of Heimaey on the island of Vestmannaeyjar. We flew to Heimaey from a small airstrip in Bakki. The plane was only a single propeller six passenger plane and the total flying time was less than ten minutes. As we approached the island, we had excellent views of the recent volcanic activity that had created a new shoreline. In 1973 Heimaey supplied 20% of the fish catch for the entire Iceland fishing fleet. At this time, however, a new volcano called Eldfell erupted on the edge of town. This eruption was big enough to eventually bury about 70 homes, causing the evacuation of most of the island. The biggest concern was for the harbor, vital to the fishing industry, yet getting slowly closed off by the advancing lava flow. The solution to this problem was pumping a constant stream of seawater onto the lava in order to cool it and stop it from closing the harbor entrance. Pumps from all over the world were sent and dozens were in constant use, spraying and cooling the lava. The plan worked and the flow stopped, creating a harbor that was even more safe and more protected than the original. After touching down we hiked to town, but stopped to climb Helgafell on our way. Helgafell volcano is older and higher than Eldfell, so we had great views of Eldfell and the town of Heimaey. After setting up our tent in the campground outside of town, we hiked up Eldfell and wandered around the lava flow. It has been over thirty years since the end of the eruption and the community has reclaimed part of their land by building a geothermal plant on the new lava flow and by dumping their garbage in a newly constructed landfill. Heather managed to convince me that a cruise around the island was a good idea, so the two boarded a small tour boat and circumnavigated the island, seeing puffins, guillemots, and kittiwakes. The tour guide even treated the passengers to a tenor saxophone serenade in a wonderfully acoustic cave in the harbor. I had to pull Heather away when she started insisting that she have a crack at a solo on the horn. After the cruise we hiked up a cliff called Storaklif. From the top there were incredible views of the town, the harbor, and the volcanoes. There are some amazingly steep and high cliffs in these islands. They are perfect for nesting birds, so besides the fish, the locals also gather eggs and catch birds for their food. That evening Heather dined on smoked puffin salad while I ate a tasty mixed seafood platter.
The next day we hiked back to the airport and flew back to Bakki. We drove west from Bakki toward Reykjavic, following the eastern coast of the Reykjanes Peninsula on our way to a geothermal spa called the Blue Lagoon. Just before we arrived at the lagoon we picked up a tour guide that had punctured his third tire for the day and needed a lift to the local tire shop. He was driving four Chinese tourists around in his station wagon for the day and was also on his way to the Blue Lagoon for an end of the day soak. He told us that the group of Chinese tourists decided to travel to Iceland at the last minute after they watched the handball team’s amazing performance in Beijing only a few days before. After dropping him back off at the car, we were on our way again to the Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is a very popular spa where tourists soak in the mineral rich water usually before their flight back home (the international airport is a short drive away). After our soak we drove back into Reykjavic and stayed at the city hostel.
The next day we packed up and drove off to the airport. After a bit of an airplane mix-up and a mad dash through Frankfurt, we reconnected in Singapore and flew home together from there. What an excellent trip! By the end we were both completely satisfied with our tour of Iceland. There are always more things to do and places to see in any one country, but both of us feel that we had a full experience of this beautiful island.
