miðvikudagur, 18 júlí 2007

Left Skaftafell at 0905 and we arrived at Jökulsárlón after skirting around the SW and S sides of Hvannadalshnjukur. We walked over a small gravel ridge and boom! There was a beautiful aquamarine lagoon filled with icebergs of all shapes and coloration – black-topped, arched, contorted, clear - one even had a seal on it. Hvannadalshnúkur was in the background, and Vatnajökull’s icecap yielding to a glacier that was feeding this 100 m deep lake. The outlet river to the Atlantic is Jökulsá, the shortest river in Iceland at 1,500 m long. We walked along the bank of the lake and along the river to the ocean and saw smaller icebergs floating down this river, under a bridge, to be tossed around on the ocean waves’ whims – to beach or not to beach?

We were now leaving the sandur and seeing more green alongside the road and in the hills. In fact, there was at least one marsh where sheep had wandered to munch the taller grass as they stood in chest-high cold water. Passed the turn-off to Höfn and made our way towards Egilsstaður and the eastern fjörds. Once through a very long tunnel, we emerged in a different landscape;

large hills of rock and gravel, perfect cone shapes merged at different heights, descended right to the edge of the road...which was under construction. Besides the roadsigns indicating limited visibility and "Malbik Endan" denoting the end of the paved road - right now - there were some warning signs about the possibility of falling rocks. I should say so!

A fjörd or two more, and we were in Egilsstaður, land of the first (official) group visit to a Vín Búð and home of Bulla Burger's hreindýr hamborgari. I thought the reindeer burger was delicious and much milder yet tastier than venison. Many pictures drawn by children were on the walls and this one caught my eye - the writing says "Hann á að láta mig fá hamborgarar" - "He is going to turn me into hamburger". Sólla bought groceries for the next several days in the nearby grocery store where there was a cold room for vegetables and fruits and a separate one for meats. We took many boxes of supplies out to the bus. The liquor prices were indeed steep so some of us decided to either go with what was familiar or with what we couldn't get in our own countries - Bud Var, Icelandic beers (Viking, Egils Ales).

Sólla had made reservations for us to have wonderful homemade chicken noodle soup at Möðrudalur, where a local minister built a church long ago in memory of his late wife. He also included Herðubreið, a large mountain known as "The Queen of the North" that loomed in the distance southwest of us, in many of his paintings and became quite well-known for these depictions. The church was very quaint and had a Grandma Moses-style painting of the Sermon on the Mount over the altar. Across the road were some turf houses and achillea grew out of several areas of the walls - pretty!

But even though the soup and rolls were wonderful, the view of Herðubreið stunning, the church setting both personally touching and redolent with history, and our table received instruction on how to say "MacChicken" in Mandarin (McXiangJi, or, MacFragrant Chicken), this was about to become The Time That Meg Learned About the Hover Mower. I think there must have been a discussion about keeping up the yardwork at this church because then Greg brought up something called the Hover Mower. After traveling with Greg for all of 2 days, I had a feeling he was pulling my leg. I had - and still have never - heard of the Hover Mower, that moves along the contour of the lawn on a cushion of air. I mean, I'm sorry, but it sounded too fantastic to me...but of course I have pulled up almost all the grass in my lawn and planted perennials, roses, trees, so lawnmowers rarely come into my consciousness. And of course, there was the very prominent aspect that this was something out of Greg's imagination, something just to pull out of the blue and try to fool me with. Well, I queried others in the group before Greg had a chance to give them a wink-wink-nudge-nudge that he was playing a joke on me, and I FOUND OUT IT WAS TRUE! There really is a Hover Mower!

Plans were made for tomorrow - onward to Ásbyrgi campground now. We would add Dettifoss to our waterfall hike tomorrow. The washboard road gave the big yellow bus quite a workout, but just when I didn't think Sveini could downshift any lower, another gear powered us up narrow gravel roads around other cars and corners. This land looks unfinished, even if it is covered in lava flows several thousand years old. The waters of the glacial rivers change route depending on flow and recent tectonics, lava burbles up every now and then, it snows and then that melts, taking some of this Martianscape with it. Springtime brings clumps of lupines, floods bring new clumps of huge rocks. Iceland is a fascinating dreamscape of geologic changes. Simply amazing.

And then we rounded a corner to see the horseshoe-shaped Great Wall of Ásbyrgi, the setting sun bringing out the golds and coppers of the stone, green grass a perfect backdrop for that play of light. We set up camp and hit the sack while it was still very light outside - we were now the closest we would get to the Arctic Circle.

þriðjudagur, 17 júlí 2007

Woke up again today to the glorious songs of the birds in Skaftafell. The snipe (yes, Virginia, there really is a snipe you can hunt for) makes a fluttery noise with its tail, and some other unidentified birds sang several different beautiful songs.

Today Ian and I were going to walk with the group partway to the lagoon that we’d looked upon from the carpet-like mossy overlook, then return to take a glacier trek. We lunched on the banks of a very cold stream coming directly from that lagoon – I can’t imagine how anyone can ford something that cold on foot, but they often do whether they want to or not. I was only able to soak my feet for about 5 seconds at a time in that cold, cold water.

Snout of neighboring glacier across the sand.

Resting after lunch by an icy stream before the last jaunt to the lagoon formed from the glacier up ahead.

Onward to the glacier and instruction by Ben from New Zealand about safety on Svinafellsjökull. Crampons tied on, ice axes held Italian-style in the uphill hand. Very fun! I learned about the significance of the blue color in glacial ice – it means that it’s quite dense and safe to walk on, even if there is some water on top of it. He also compared glaciers to Snickers bars; the outer crust of ice is rather rigid and that’s why it cracks and forms crevasses when put under stress, but in the middle is a more fluid layer that is more flexible because it’s not frozen solid. Within it are the peanuts, or rocks and debris. We were standing on a part of the glacier that was about 50 m thick. The glacier was 1,000 m deep at its thickest part. There was one point where I felt the ice move underneath my foot as I stepped across a narrow (and shallow) crevasse, and being sensitive to the feel of earthquakes, I asked Ben if I was just imagining this jolt that I felt. He said no, it was probably the movement of that more liquid layer, a glacial surge. It was pretty wild!

Across the small valley was a tall hill, fairly eroded, with a dirt shelf that extended for a significant distance near its top. Under this shelf were some hikers in an area that had been roped off for the obvious danger of the shelf eventually giving way. After pointing out on that hill how high the glacier used to be, Ben muttered, “Darwinisn…” under his breath. He showed us 700 year old yellow-orange pumice, accurately dated by local farm records of eruptions and types of ashfall. Although it was compressed because of being under ice for a long time, it was still lighter than a normal rock its size. Sunburned nose that peeled for 2 weeks notwithstanding (and that was with sunscreen applied several times), it was really great being out on the glacier and I can’t wait to venture out on one – with a guide – again. I do love the ice and snow, so here are several pictures from on the glacier.

Ben showing the group a "glacier mouse", aka stone that has gathered moss on all sides due to gentle but consistent movement of the glacier.

OK, I took this picture as we were walking - didn't have time to aim better, and I also didn't want to fall into this crevasse!



Later that evening three little kids came around to the bus, the one about 2 years old absolutely entranced by the wheels. I “escorted” them onto the bus and they had a great time just sitting up high in the seats. Their mothers were nearby and we had a nice conversation about all the families enjoying camping out during the summer. It definitely was noticeable wherever we went! Some of us dropped by the information center, watched the movie on the 1996 jökulhlaup, and read about some of the natural history. One amusing comment from a local in the 1700s or 1800s was about cats – “It was not thought that cats would do well in Iceland. (They figured) they would die of sheer boredom.”

mánudagur, 16 júlí 2007

Today was our first hike, to Kristínartíndar. It was hard to tell what the weather would do as it was cloudy and a little nippy in the campground, so we all layered up, filled water bottles, grabbed some snacks, and headed out. We could now see part of the Skaftafell glacier that falls from Vatnajökull– pretty amazing to think of all the water held in one place by mere cold temperature. Not that glaciers are inert – quite the opposite – but that’s tomorrow’s tale.


Up we went where we encountered a female ptarmigan and several chicks, all decked out in their woodsy plumage. This is where Valdí told us an old Icelandic joke – “What do you do if you’re lost in Iceland? Stand up!” ‘Tis true, not many big trees around, but quite a few hills, ravines, and oh look, yet another gorgeous waterfall! We would return to the first one, Svartifoss, at the end of the hike.

Soon we were at a glacial overlook where we could see the interaction of the snout of the glaciers with the land. Sometimes they melted into small lakes, some turned to streams of various sizes, some just receded. But they were all moving at their own glacial pace, leaving traces of earlier eruptions and picking up new debris.

Unfortunately, there was still enough fog to block some of the distant views, but just walking over different types of rocks, seeing the flowers that bloom at different elevations, and having brief conversations with my fellow hikers was great. We came to an overlook with a nice drop-off and Valdí inadvertently struck a pose that we gave him interminable grief about for the rest of his time with us.

We hiked to a little place by a creek for lunch and I drank right from the stream – the water was refreshingly crisp and in endless supply! Just the right thing for what would turn out to be about a 20 km hike with 1,300 m elevation gain. Off again to tackle this hill that was still shrouded in many places with fog. Finally we broke through this fog level to catch our first glimpse of Hvannadalshnúkur, the highest peak in Iceland at 2,119 m and have a clear view of part of the massive icecap. WOW! At this pass we turned to go up a very steep scree slope to head to the top of Kristínartíndar. Halfway up, though, Valdí made sure we all turned the right direction (it was a bit of a drop the other way…) After a bit of a scramble and walk along a pretty narrow edge, we found ourselves at the top with amazing views of the surrounding mountains and the icecap. Time to break out the chocolate-covered raisins, dried fruit, peanuts, cookies, and water! On the way down I heard a clattering like what I would expect of a scree rockslide - but then again not quite loud enough – and it turned out to be Valdí scree-surfing down this hill. Looked like fun, but I stuck to my steady downhill pace.

Les Invalides with summit of Hvannadalshnúkur in background

("Superman" and Sólla - who may as well be Supergirl - photo courtesy of Simon K. Leung)

The group on the top!

The route back to the campground was just as varied a landscape as the way up. Across hills that were shaped with rolling layers of moss-covered lava, a few overlooks of the valley that would be tomorrow’s hike for some folks, a kilometer+ of 4’ tall bilberry bushes in a prairie setting, we met at the directional sundial (“Greetings and salutations!” exclaimed Simon) and then headed off to Svartifoss. Svartifoss is flanked by slender dark basalt hexagonal columns – the word “fluted” comes to mind, as it is quite elegant a waterfall. Cow parsley, forget-me-nots, and campanula were abundant along this last bit of the hike. Pasta for dinner, a very precious 4 minute hot shower, last-minute stretches before retiring in daylight at 23.30 under the glowing summit of Hvannadalshnúkur.

Oh! We were lucky enough to meet Valdí’s family (and Mikki!) I had a good chat in baby Íslensku with Snæbjörn. OK, that may be giving me too much language credit… Best of luck to them on their latest adventure!

sunnudagur, 15 júlí 2007

Around 09.00 the big yellow bus, magnet to all children under the age of 5, arrived. Our group piled into it, luggage underneath providing ballast (hahaha – well, if any of the rivers we crossed were higher, perhaps that would have been its role!) Sólveig “Sólla” Pétursdóttir introduced herself as our guide for the the trip, to be assisted for a couple of days by Valdí. We also met our intrepid and talented driver, Sveini, who had over one million miles of safe driving under his professional belt. You will see evidence of the conditions he drove in throughout this blog.

Over rolling hills and the first large-scale signs of the geothermal power that fuels this island (which, by the way, allow the most blissful long-as-you-want hot showers) became apparent. Across some very craggy lava were tall towers of white steam, scattered irregularly along the hillsides. For some idea of how the Icelanders use geothermal energy, here is the website for Orkuveita Reykjavíkur (in English) - http://www.or.is/Forsida/ABOUTREYKJAVIKENERGY/ReykjavikEnergy/

On the other side of the road was their very effective public service announcement about safe driving – an utterly destroyed SUV up on a platform, ex post meeting of steel, lava and more steel at a high rate of speed. As we found out later in the day, one must pay attention to the roadsigns. Blindhæð - blind hill – slow down. Change from paved road to dirt – slow down. Narrow roads – please be careful. "!"sign means you'd better have been paying attention because there's a big change in the road you'll need to adapt to RIGHT NOW!

Seljalandsfoss, our first officieal waterfall, promised some interesting dynamics as it fell 65 m from a cliff that was recessed enough to walk behind it. Depending on the wind and air currrents generated in that cove, you could get misted or quite wet. The path was slippery but standing behind the waterfall was well worth the extra care taken with footing. The curtain of water provided a partial curtain to the parking lot but the cove we stood in briefly amplified the different languages of all the tourists - Japanese, German, French - as they walked by in wonder.

Just down the road a bit was Skógafoss, 62 m. Quite alot of water flowed over it and although we heard about the legend of the treasure that was supposed to be hidden behind the falls, it didn't seem an easy task to take on. We climbed to the top of something like 385 steps to peer over the edge of the falls and try to see where the water crashed at the bottom, but it was too high.

Time for our first Icelandic lunch on the road - ýsa, a dried haddock, rauðurbrauð (red bread) that was moist and mildly spiced, a little like ginger bread, and I was introduced to an ice tea that was made with kibbled tea and sugar bits. Of course, those from the land where tea has always been imbibed and never thrown into a harbor thought the idea of iced tea rank, but this concoction wasn't too bad. Not very strong, and probably wouldn't hold its own in a 105 F Texas summer day, but travel is always full of interesting gastronomic discoveries! (For a loving recollection of sweet iced tea check out http://www.slate.com/id/2171917/nav/tap3/) The dried haddock was very good and I ate it on several occasions.

Sólla continued with her descriptions of the areas we drove through on our way towards the southernmost tip of the mainland. As we crossed over a river, she said, "In case you think someone has been farting, they have not been - it's the river." Indeed it had been. We could see the SSW long leg of Mýrdalsjökull, which is currently retreating at a rate of 100 m a year, on our left and the North Atlantic on our right. Already we could note a difference in the topography as we approached the Mýrdalssandur sand plains.

We stopped to take a short walk to see the sea stacks off the black lava beach at Reynisdrangur, and we treated to the sight of zillions of puffins flying around and landing within camera range! They have a funny little choppy way of flying as if their wings aren't quite long enough to keep them aloft, especially with that colorful beak leading the way.

(Photo courtesy of Simon K. Leung)

Looking to the west gave us a peek through Dyrhólaey, the doorway.

This was also the first time we saw the hexagonal basalt columns in nature, and they were absolutely stunning.

Two columns just offshore resembled giant stone trolls, and tales were told about their being caught in sunlight and subsequently turned to stone. I think trolls really pushed their luck in Iceland; there were many huge rocks all over the country that looked troll-ish. And maybe they just couldn’t tell time.

Speaking of time, we were now crossing the sandur, terrain that has been ravaged over and over throughout the literal formation of Iceland. The latest natural disaster in the area that changed the landscape was the jökulhlaup of 1996, when sub-glacial volcano Grimsvötn erupted under the Vatnajökull icecap. Some of us watched a video of this glacial burst where torrents of water that had been melted and displaced by the magma flow scoured the landscape, tearing enormous icebergs from the edge of the glacier. These icebergs then tumbled in the floodwaters, taking out parts of the Ring Road and a major bridge. An interesting scene showed bulldozers breaking apart these 2- and 3- story icy edifices. What was in place now were hummocks of chunky lava, some covered with a grey-green moss, and very flat flood plains that appeared to have many different channels leading to the Atlantic. Not exactly beachfront property, but very fascinating!

We arrived at Skaftafell National Park and had a quick lesson tent-raising from Valdí. “You’ll see what poles go together and this is how it goes up!” We also soon realized the value of a mallet to drive the tent stakes into the glacially-landscaped rocky ground.

This was our introduction to the importance of having 4 – 50 Isk coins – the showers! Since I had no change the first day I managed with VERY cold water from a sink in the WC and got a TOTAL brain freeze when I washed my hair with water fresh from the glacier!