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!