You've Got to See the Matinee
Big ol' slabs of ice have nothing on the sky (Iceland Part 5)
Day 5 (Friday):
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Despite our post-midnight gazing into the night sky, we had an early start and another long day of exploring ahead. We all piled back into the shuttle with Hilmar, who carefully drove us over an hour through incredible landscapes of lava fields with both glacier and ocean views. Our first stop of the day was in Vatnajökull National Park to see Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, where we explored calved icebergs from Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier. Similar to clouds, our little group spotted animals in the shapes of the icebergs, like this bear:
We also made a quick stop at Diamond Beach to see more icebergs floating out to sea.
The Traverse
After our slow and meandering explorations that were really more photo-op than anything, it was finally time for the big adventure of the day: traversing a glacier, crampons and all. When we arrived at the gear hut at the base of the glacier, we were handed a climbing helmet, harness, ice axe, and crampons. Once the group was ready, a new guide led us up a steep single-track trail of volcanic ash and rock that sits atop the glacier (but there’s enough sediment to have traction without the use of spikes). Minutes later, we arrived at a small clearing and were instructed to put on the crampons – we were gearing up to spend the next few hours navigating crevasses and exploring an (incredibly small) ice cave.
We did meander a bit, and it was stunning and fun, and entirely wild to stand on water that flowed tens of thousands of years ago. But it turns out that the ice axe was really just for show, and the harness was just in case one of us slipped into a crevasse (because it’s impossible to put a harness on someone jammed in a narrow passageway, but it’s a necessary piece of gear to aid in their rescue)1.
We were encouraged to have some fun with it:
More, more, more
After a few hours on the glacier, we returned to the shuttle to make our way back to Kirkjubaejarklaustur for dinner and another round of hunting for the Northern Lights. Unlike our dinner, mother nature did not disappoint. In fact, she heard our plea for a matinee, and blasted the sky with a dazzling display of brilliant greens (and some reds!) dancing across the night sky by 9 pm:
It happened so early in the night, we actually had time and energy to play another short round of Golf before bed. Let it be known that Mike took a huge risk that paid off in that game: the set of four twos afforded him a dearth of 20 points (the purpose of the game is to end with as few points as possible). At that point, it was worth pausing the game and getting some rest – our sleepy brains can only handle so much excitement in a single day.
Day 1: Iceland: A Land of Fire and Ice
Day 2: Our Only Regret is Not Drinking More
Day 4: Mother Nature's Mic Drop
Dave and I were pretty surprised that they didn’t provide any sort of guidance around ice axe safety beyond the typical “don’t swing the axe” (which Elizabeth immediately did behind her head). In the US, this would be a huge liability concern, giving a bunch of tourists a weapon they could easily hurt themselves with (I kept envisioning someone tripping with the crampon and stumbling forward directly onto the axe, but luckily nothing of the sort happened).