Essential Iceland Tour Part 2

Throughout the morning Steinar kept pointing out the massive ice cap in the distance, our afternoon destination of Langjökull, and now we were on our way. As we left the solid fields of lava, the ground turned to dark rock and dirt. The landscape becoming more and more baron, a strange beauty.

Steinar explained to us that the normal tour drives to the glacier but because of deep snow in the winter and total ice in the summer they stay next to it.  There is only a 2 to 3 week period each year when their trucks can actually drive up it and guess what kids? Today was one of those days!

There's really no road, as you can see, and as soon as we hit the snow at the base of the glacier the guides raced each other, driving madly all over and up to about the midway point. We got out and were all just stunned at the beauty. 

We loaded back in the Rover and continued to the absolute top. We couldn't believe it! The sky was blue and almost cloudless, the views went on forever and being on top of the glacier was a total "king of the world" experience. Even the guides were taking pictures!

After some glacial snow eating and snow angel making each of the drivers let a good amount of air out of the over-sized tires allowing them to have better traction for the next part of our journey. We'd be driving off the glacier and up to the top of a near by shield volcano. This should give you a small taste of how surreal the drive was!

Again the drivers all raced each other off the glacier and had a ball climbing up steep sides of snow and ice, scaring the hell out of most of us! I don't think anyone really thought we were going to the top of the volcano, I think we thought Steinar meant we were heading in that direction. But soon we found ourselves parked along side the other trucks on top of the crater, watching snowmobiles zip around the inside, reminding me of a motorcycle cage of death show.

We were given more time to enjoy the never-ending, stunning views from the top of the volcano while the drivers used portable generators to re-inflate their tires. Then we descended into Cold Valley pass, traveling again not on a road but just finding our way thru the now slushy snow pack.

 We found an actual rode a bit further off, although it was gravel, and continued on to Þingvellir (pronounced "thing vellir") the site of the birth of Iceland's parliament, the site of the largest lake in Iceland and the site of the Rift Valley where the tectonic plates are moving apart at a rate of about 3cm per year.

Our incredible day came to end as we were dropped back off at the hotel. The Washington Six ordered drinks in the Hilton's bar and rehashed the day, truly marveling at our experience.

Hot springs, waterfalls, lava cave, glacier, volcano, tectonic plates. Highly recommended.

Iceland photos

Essential Iceland Tour Part 1

On our second day in Reykjavik we were picked up in the lobby of our hotel by Iceland Rovers for a full day excursion which was included in our package. As we climbed into the Land Rover, outfitted with oversized tires, we met the other 2 couples who would be riding with us for the day, one from our own backyard of Woodinville and the other from DC. The Washington Six I'll call us. Our driver Steinar was really excited about the weather conditions and told us more than once that it was going to be a great day and we were going to see some amazing things. None of us seemed to really know what all was included in this day trip but everyone was excited (and really nice thankfully!)

This was everyone's first glimpse of Iceland outside of the city and we were all impressed with the strange landscape. We had lots of questions for Steinar, who seemed happy to share his incredible knowledge of his country (Steinar can trace his roots back to the first Vikings who settled there). After driving under the fjord Hvalfjörður, one of the longest underwater road tunnels in the world, at a depth of over 500 feet, we came to Deildartunguhver which is the highest flow hot spring in the world at a rate of 180 liters per second. This water is sent through pipes to neighboring towns and was quite a first wonder for us all.

From here we drove further out to the middle of no-where until we came to the waterfalls of Hraunfossar and Barnafoss. At these falls, in the middle of a huge lava flow, you can really see how the water is forced to exit under the lava as it can't travel on top of it.

We were able to hike around the two sets of falls, with rope warning us only not to step on the moss growing on the lava. Unsuspecting tourists could easily fall in just like the children that the falls are named after. The water here was so blue it was almost surreal, it was a gorgeous area to explore.

A short drive from the falls, we turned onto a dirt unmarked road and parked in the middle of the Hallmundarhraun lava flow. Here we donned helmets and headlamps and made our way to one of the largest lava caves in the country. Steinar explained to us that to find these caves they fly over the lava fields in the winter looking for holes in the snow where parts of the roof of the caves have collapsed. Then in the spring they go to check and see if it's an actual lava tube/cave.

 We first climbed down a ladder into the opening of the cave. Then we carefully descended the snow, ice and rock into the cave itself. Once inside it wasn't all that deep, well it is but they have it blocked off for only official spelunkers which we are not. We clambered around the rocks and frozen ice while Steinar gave us more geology lessons.

Back to the Rover we headed farther into the interior of the country and towards our lunch stop. There were four other trucks doing the same excursion but up until now we had only seen them arriving as we were departing the various sites. The drivers had been speaking to each other via CB radio with us being able to hear their conversations but not understanding Icelandic it didn't affect us much. As we traveled along a river toward a bridge their conversation turned to English with comments about the bridge not being safe, not worth much, etc etc.  All of a sudden Steingar turns off the road and into the river! Everyone was laughing and whooping it up as we crossed the (not very shallow) river with the other trucks in tow.

It was quite exciting really, and the guides were just having a blast! After a stop for some traditional lamb soup with fresh baked bread and Viking beers we would continued on our exploration.

Iceland photos

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