Iceland Part 2: Glacier Hike, Iceberg Lagoon, and the Golden Circle

After our few exciting days in Mývatn, we packed up the Chevy Spark and continued clockwise along the #1.  We were in for another long day of driving, but our first stop was less than an hour away.  We detoured off the Ring Road heading north through a lunar landscape to the waterfalls of Selfoss and Dettifoss.  The overnight temps had gone almost to freezing and it was a chilly mile walk from the car park (we were the only people there) to the cascades.   Dettifoss is truly impressive in its force and is said to be the most powerful (in terms of water volume) in Europe while Selfoss is a much more graceful waterfall coming down over the black basalt rock about a mile upstream. 

Deftifoss

Selfoss

A few more hours of driving later we were quite surprised to find that the #1 wasn’t actually paved the whole way around.  We drove at least thirty miles on gravel, a feat little Sparky handled much better than expected.  Chris, armed with a huge pack of Twizzlers and can of Pringles, handled the next five or so hours of driving with ease.  The #1 really does provide some beautiful scenery as it winds along the Eastern Fjords of the country.  We stopped to take photos of waterfalls and stretch our legs a couple times along the way, and made it to the Jokulsarlon Lagoon by late afternoon.

Waterfall along the drive.

The grocery store chain where we bought most of our food.  Why the pig with a black eye? 

Just one of the views from along the Ring Road.

Our car wasn't allowed on the interior F roads of the country (streams to traverse, etc).

This truck was allowed on F roads. :D

This lagoon is really interesting.  The #1 literally bridges over it, so it’s impossible to miss!  Jokulsarlon formed when the glacier at its mouth receded and saltwater from the ocean made its way in to the excavated space.  The saltwater, combined with the current warming period is melting the glacier around 200m a year.  As the glacier melts, it calves huge icebergs that drop into the lagoon and can float there for months before either melting or moving out to sea through the small inlet.  We stood on the edge of the lagoon laughing at the seals being cute and oo’ing and ah’ing at the seemingly fluorescent blue ice.  

Volcanic ash trapped in the ancient ice.

Denser, blue ice.

Our friends the Leach's advised us to also wander around the black sand beach at the outlet of the lagoon as chunks of ice that have been washed out to sea sometimes get pushed onto the shore with the tide.  It was pretty cool to play amongst the ancient ice.

Standing on the shore with the oversized ice cubes.

1000 year old ice!

One of our favorite bits of this trip was hiking half way up Falljokull (Ice Fall Glacier).  We were picked up from our campsite by a yellow school bus, which drove us the ten minutes to Falljokul.  We were handed a sandwich and juice box (appelsínusafa in Icelandic is orange juice, go figure), crampons, an ice pick, harness, and helmet, then hiked along what looked to be dirty gravel (which actually covered meters of ice) to what looked like the start of the glacier.  Falljokull  is an outlet glacier of the huge Vatnajokull ice cap that takes up 10% of Iceland, meaning it’s a slow river of ice coming down off the ice cap and melting into the sea.  The top two thirds or so of the glacier flows downwards (I forget, maybe a few meters a years?) while the lower third is actually ‘dead’ ice that is slowly melting.  This melting dead ice means the glacier is receding quite rapidly at 18 meters per year.  All of the outlet glaciers are receding at alarming rates, and it’s thought that in a hundred or so years there won’t be any left in Iceland!  You can see maybe 10 or 15 of these outlet glaciers from the southern part of the ring road, and Chris and I couldn’t help but be sad when we thought of their slow death. 

Standing on the glacier.

One of the outlet glaciers and its melt stream.

Our glacier guide Henrik (who was born in 1990… how are we so old?) clarified that there have always been periods of warming and cooling over time.  In the 1960’s the glaciers were larger than they were in the 1980’s, for example, the difference today is just how incredibly quickly the melting is taking place… faster than ever recorded. 

As I mentioned before this lower section of the iceberg isn’t moving, meaning we could sit in peace to put on our crampons and take off a few layers of clothes (the sun was warm!)  Armed with the spiky crampons, we moved in a loose line along the relatively flat lower section of the glacier.  Streams of clear melt water coursed through the ice, so our guide advised us to fill water bottles and showed us how to drink straight from the stream.   Henrik stopped us often to explain what we were seeing.  Once, about two minutes after explaining the dangers of hiking on some of the volatile uppermost parts of the glacier, we heard a loud boom and looked up to see an avalanche along one of the ridges (nowhere near us, don’t worry Grandma) .  It was an impressive sight, and I was suddenly feeling a little less adventurous!  Henrik cracked us up when he so eloquently told us “I’m trained to think of my customers as tennis balls.  I always have to look at which way they’d roll if they were to fall.” We were pretty sure that a tennis ball would’ve come straight down with all that rock and ice.

Stopping for a sip of water.

Chris armed with an ice pick.

Me glancing into an ice cave.

Should we have been jumping this? 

Chris and the rest of our group trecking along.

After our glacier hike we drove back to the Jokulsarlon Lagoon to take a boat through the icebergs that were constantly being calved from the Vatnajökull glacier.  The ice can be many different colors:  white ice is starting to melt, and less dense (the air bubbles within make it look white), black from volcanic ash, and pearly opalescent bright blue from really dense, non-melted ice.  Only 10% of any iceberg ice is visible on the surface, and we saw an impressive example of that when a seemingly small iceberg flipped over and exposed a huge section of its bright blue underbelly right beside the boat.  Even our boat captain, who must glide through the lagoon a hundred times a day, pulled out his cell phone to take some photos!  

Flipped glacier - the white part on the left used to be above the water while the blue ice to the right was underwater.

Strange ice shapes.

That night we stayed in a gorgeous guest house in Vik and the next morning came down to the most stunning breakfast.  On the massive wooden table sat fresh coffee and tea, homemade rhubarb and currant preserves, homemade bread and rolls, eggs, pancakes and juice.  Basically it was the best start to a packed day of sightseeing.  Our first stop was down the road a couple miles at the southernmost point of Iceland.  The black sand beaches were beautiful and had the sun been shining and the temperature quite a bit warmer we might’ve just scrapped the rest of our plans and stayed there for the day!  From there we started backwards on the quite famous Golden Circle route.  This route is great for anyone staying an overnight in Reyjkavic (for a layover on Iceland Air, for example) but honestly after seeing the rest of Iceland it just wasn’t as impactful as it would’ve been on its own.  The biggest contrast between the Golden Circle and the rest of Iceland was the seemingly vast number of people at the Circle’s three main sights: Gulfoss waterfall, Geyser (after which all others are named), and Pinglevir National Park, the other end of the Rift Valley we had visited in Mývatn.  

Vik's black sand and basalt columns.

Skogafoss

Seljalandsfoss

Geyser

The 'crowds' watching Geyser.

Gulfoss

Chris standig in the Rift Valley of Pinglevir National Park.  

Our last night was spent in Iceland’s capital Reyjkavic, where we were thankful to be warm and comfy in our room as the wind and rain absolutely raged outside.   This was the only evening we ate dinner out and weren’t really impressed.  So, with a sample size of only one, to us, the food in Iceland wasn’t worth the money.  We’re returning to Iceland over Thanksgiving weekend to try to catch the Northern Lights so may explore more of Reyjkavic then but for this trip we were content to spend a quiet night and catch our plane the next morning. 

So was it worth it?  ABSOLUTELY.  This may have been my favorite trip so far, and Chris said he feels the same.  All you Seattle folks should take advantage of IcelandAir's layover opportunity to Iceland if you ever get an urge to visit Europe!

The earth is aliiive! Iceland Part 1: Myvatn and the North

When we told people we were going to Iceland for a week, there were two very predictable responses.  Those who had known someone who went or visited themselves would say:  "It’s stunningly beautiful but I¢€£and is very $$$$$, hope your wallet is thick! " Those who had never looked into traveling there asked “won’t you freeze?”  Although Iceland flirts with the Arctic Circle, the currents surrounding the small country keep its weather relatively mild (but impressively windy).  Our entire week was sunny with 55 degrees as a high and about 40 as the overnight low.  

I should say that we had soaring expectations for this trip. We love the outdoors and were really looking forward to doing a good bit of hiking, admiring waterfalls, scrambling over a glacier, climbing (inactive) volcanoes, and picking our way over recent lava fields.   Could it possibly live up to its reputation?

Iceland is roughly the size of England and most of the main sights are along the one main ring road that circumnavigates the country.  Yes, one main road. Around the entire country.  This ring road, aptly named the ‘# 1’, makes it pretty much impossible to get lost.  In fact, we decided against the $12/day GPS and, armed with only a 3’ by 2’ map of the country, made our way in our tiny Chevy Spark out of the car rental place and towards the #1.  We had decided to drive clockwise, passing right through the capital Reykjavik and heading all the way north to Mývatn before continuing along the east side of the country and back along the south coast.  I’m so, so, so thankful for Chris’s fantastic driving skills and willingness to drive for hours at a time!  The first day was a long one, and we were amazed that in seven hours of driving we only saw a handful of cars and maybe two trucks. 

Pretty scenery, cool mountains.

Lava field starting to get covered with lichens and early grasses.

What we did see were horses.  Everywhere.   There are 80,000 of the small horses (pony sized, really), which we’d later find out were all one pure breed originating from Viking times.  The rules of Iceland are really strict regarding the horses: none are allowed to enter the country and once an Icelandic horse leaves it can’t return. These are in place to protect the genetics and health of the breed.  We asked someone why there were so many horses, because they didn’t really look like pets or work animals. I’m paraphrasing, but he said that some people do ride or use them on the farms but really they’re no work to keep, so most people say ‘why not have some?’  Some people eat the meat, but you can’t make much money selling it as an entire horse only costs around 12-15,000 ISK (around $100-$120).  The Icelandic horse has a extra couple gaits in addition to most horses’ walk, trot, and canter/gallop.  We saw a herd of horses being moved from one pasture to another by a few riders and stopped to take a video.  The hölt is one of the extra gaits, which is a really smooth running walk.  I’ve never seen anything like it!

Herd of horses being driven to a new pasture.

The scenery changed frequently as we drove around the west section of the Ring Road.  I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of wild peeing on this trip as bathrooms were pretty impossible to come by, except in some of the ‘towns’ we passed every hour or two. 

The tip of one of the many fjords we drove by.  They're miles long, quite narrow, and a magnificent blue.

Over and over we heard and saw just how expensive it was to be in Iceland.  Food especially is exorbitantly priced as growing veggies requires a greenhouse and almost everything else needs to be shipped from either North America or Europe.  To keep our costs down, we did two main things: packed a suitcase full of food (tuna, rice, beans, bagels, peanut butter, trail mix, instant Starbucks coffee, etc) and booked sleeping bag accommodation, a great option where farms and campsites offer a bed without sheets.  The accommodations offered a communal kitchen, so not only did we save huge money not staying at overpriced hotels, we also didn’t have to go out to eat.  We probably saved a thousand bucks from those two easy modifications.  That said, we spent the last two nights at proper guesthouses, which felt pretty luxurious!

We wanted to go to Iceland mainly because we’ve seen so many Eden and Discovery Channel shows on its unique landscape.  Humor me for a two-minute amateur geology lesson. Basically the theory of ‘plate tectonics’, popularized only in the past fifty or so years, finally explained why there are lines of volcanoes along the edges of continents, why major earthquakes are clustered along (fault) lines, and why rocks along sea floor trenches are so weirdly young.  Plate tectonics theorizes the earth’s continents and oceans are carried on huge moving plates that move in relation to each other.  The North American plate, for example, is moving away (diverging) from the European plate at a rate of 10mm a year, and on the other side the US, the San Andreas fault is carrying Los Angeles north relative to the rest of California.   The North American and European plates are separated by the Mid Atlantic Rift Valley, basically around a half-mile-wide line where the earth’s crust, only a third its normal thickness, is constantly being remodeled from below as new earth formed by molten rock from deep within the earth pushes apart the plates.  This particular rift runs under the ocean, except in one tiny section where it comes up onto land…through Iceland!  The rift stretches diagonally across the country and we were able to hike around it in the two spots it transected the ring road.   As you can imagine, these rifts are incredibly active in a geological sense.  There are volcanoes, literal cracks in the earth from where the mounded earth below splits the harder rock above, boiling mud pots, and spewing geysers. 

To break up the first long day of driving, we stopped to admire the gorgeous Godafoss waterfall in northern Iceland, one of literally thousands of waterfall in the country.  It was the first time we saw people, really, and there were only about ten of them (tourists like us) at Godafoss.  99% of the people we saw in Iceland were in technical clothing, which was such a relief from the tight Euro-style flashy stuff we see everywhere else.    There is no use for impractical shoes in this country, either.  I saw exactly one pair of loafers and zero pairs of high heels in a week.  My hiking boots, a fantastic present from my in-laws a few Christmases ago, took a little beating but were perfect!

Godafoss Waterfall

I mentioned not having a GPS, but will also mention that we didn’t have phone or internet access for the first four days, either.  Iceland has the technology, of course, but we were feeling anti-tech and took a really nice break from constant contact. 

After a day’s worth of driving along some lonely, pretty scenery we stopped for a couple days in Mývatn in the north of Iceland.  Mývatn lies in the Rift Valley and is surrounded by the most unique landscape I’ve ever seen.   We stayed right on Lake Mývatn, which was formed when a lava flow from the nearby Krafla volcano dammed the river.  The lake is a bird haven, and Chris could name quite a few of the ducks feeding in the shallows.  The earth around Mývatn literally felt alive and it’s hard to explain just how unsettling it is to drive around a bend in the road and see steam coming up from the ground all around.  Whoa, that can’t be normal!

Lake Myvatn.

Is the ground on fire?

One of the coolest things we saw was Hverir, an area of boiling mud pots and steaming fumaroles.  The ground at Hverir hissed and gurgled and the rust-colored mountain in the background let off some crazy fumes.  There’s not a good way to capture the smell that came from some of these mud pots, but it was not for the faint hearted.  Sulfur was the predominant barrage, but there were others in there, too.  Even the water at the farmhouse was safe to drink, but hard to get down!  It tasted and smelled so strongly of boiled eggs and minerals; it's the only place I’ve ever smelled worse upon finishing a shower.   We resorted to buying bottled water, something I hate doing, but the risk of dehydration was real!  

Fumarole, or steaming vent, in Hverir.  Pictures don't capture how loud and smelly this place was!

I looove this face!

"Only walk on dark colored soil"  White sulfur deposits indicate HOT earth.

Close up of one of the fumaroles.

Boiling mud pots in Hverir.  The gloop, gloop, gloop sounds were so loud... it's disconcerting to watch the earth boil.

 

I love Iceland's version of safety bariers.   

Iceland is full of hot springs from its underlying geological activity.  We visited one pool that had been used for decades until the most recent eruption of the volcano nearby heated it to unusable levels.  The Blue Lagoon near the capital city is the most famous of these hot springs, although its downfall is increased commercialism and expense.  We instead visited the Mývatn Nature Baths, the north’s answer to the Blue Lagoon.  Of anything we did, though, this was the biggest disappointment.  The water was right at body temperature but because the wind had such a chill we couldn’t get warm enough! We stayed for about 45 minutes before admitting we’d rather be cozy warm in our little room in the farm house a few minutes away. 

Myvatn Nature Bath.

Myvatn Nature Bath.

One of my absolute favorite sights in Iceland was the Krafla volcanic area in the Rift Valley just north of Mývatn .   There’s no cone shaped Krafla volcano, but rather a series of fissures overlying a giant magma chamber.  Krafla erupted as recently as 1984 and is overdue for another.   The area was so active in the 1700’s that its lava fountains could be seen all the way across the country, and lava flows from that time created the lake where we stayed.  The Krafla area includes the Viti crater, one of Krafla’s many vents and a visible example of just how much energy is coming from the earth around here.  Actually, Iceland harnesses most of its energy from geothermal sources.  We drove through the Krafla Power Station, one of many in the country, on our way to see Krafla. 

Driving through the geothermal plant. 

We hiked from the parking lot to the strange Leirhnjukur mud pot whose prettiness belies the fact that it’s the most likely place of the area’s next eruption! 

The water may look inviting, but I'd suggest not swimming in it :)

From there we crunched through some of the newest lava flows (from the 1984 eruption), which look and feel as though they’ve just cooled.  There was a ‘walking path’ through the whole Krafla area, which we were warned to stay on to avoid any injury.  Apparently the earth’s crust is extremely thin there and there are areas of the earth that are close to boiling!   The problem was the ‘path’ was labeled by a rare wooden stick and oftentimes the steam (coming literally from the ground itself) was so thick it made the markers difficult to see.  It was so awesome, although Chris’ cavalier attitude towards said marker signs caused me more than a little panic and one “I need you alive to be this baby’s father!” lecture.   Every family needs a safety officer…    

 

Basically walking on top of a flat volcano... Krafla volcanic area.

Wait, is THIS the path??

 

Lava flow from the 1984 eruption.

We also hiked a few miles away at to the crater of the Hverfell volcano.  In typical Iceland terms, the guidebook said this “easy walk” to the rim would take a few minutes and offer great views.  At least it was was correct about the views!  We were in the middle of the rift valley and could see the roughly linear cracks in the earth around us stretching out in either direction.  Isn’t geology fun?  Oh, and I should mention that other than the Nature Baths every single sight I’m talking about was free to enter, free to climb around, and if there was a toilet, it was free to use.  (American Claire scratches head in confusion.)

Hverfell crater, one of the 'vents' along the ridge.

  

At the top of the crater, after our 'easy' walk to the top.  It doesn't help that I'm carrying a baby, of course! 

Super impressive - geology in action... Chris standing on one of the cracks in the earth separating the European from the North American continental plates. 

 

On the western shore of Lake Mývatn  is a group of ‘pseudocraters’ which were formed when molten lava flowed into the lake.  Trapped subsurface water boiled and popped through the cooling lava.  That’s lifted right from a book, though, and I’m not sure I understand the process.    All I know is they looked like mini volcanoes!

Pseudocrater.

More to come in Part 2...