Hiking on an Iceland glacier

I was walking on water.  We all were, following our guide.  We put our trust in her, that she would keep us safe and that no one would disappear downwards into the blue depths, though she was carrying twenty meters of rope in case we did.  I didn’t expect the water to be so blue and so beautiful, though it wasn’t that way everywhere.  At one point, our striking blonde guide caught me looking around with a smile.

“Like it?” she asked me knowingly.

I couldn’t stop smiling.  “This is really cool.”

 

Iceland is an awfully expensive country, but it’s worth going just for the scenery, which is probably like nothing you’ve ever seen.  It’s the most dramatic landscape I know, and certainly one of the most beautiful.  Some people adore the capital, Reykjavik, but I’ve written before about how I wasn’t blown away with its charms.  The thing to do in Iceland is get out of Reykjavik and enjoy the natural beauty.  You should rent your own car, not go with a tour group, and find a part of the island to explore.  I was based in the south-central small town of Vik, about three hours easy drive from Reykjavik.

Iceland has a lot of ice. (This is not an automatic thing.  Greenland does not have a lot of greenery.)  One way to appreciate the island is to get on the ice.  I had never seen a glacier before and didn’t know what to expect from a glacier hike, but just like seeing a volcano, it’s one thing I don’t have at home and don’t see very often.  My glacier hike was the only paid organized activity I did in Iceland and although expensive, it was worth every penny.

 

Grab some boots, cramptons, and a ice axe.

 

I went with Icelandic Mountain Guides simply because someone recommended them, and I was not sorry.  I shot them an advance email with questions and they were super helpful.  I reserved for a Monday, thinking there would be less people, paying 14,900 ISK ($126 US) for a three-hour tour.  This tour runs every day of the week except Christmas and New Year’s.

We were climbing on Sólheimajökull, a finger-like projection of ice coming off the main glacier Mýrdalsjökull (Iceland’s fourth-largest, if that means anything), that very conveniently points down towards Route 1, otherwise known as the Ring Road, the main highway that circles Iceland, thus making it reachable.

We’re supposed to meet at the café at the end of route 222, a 5k jaunt off of the Ring Road which leads right to the glacier, not to be confused with route 221, right next door and also going to the glacier.  5k isn’t far, but it was the worst road thus far of my trip, so bad that my driving speed went down to nothing.  I could have run it faster.  I was truly worried about the car, and about making it on time.  This is typical of Iceland, whose roads are rated.  Get off the main road and the quality can plummet quickly.

 

The surface of a glacier is anything but smooth

 

I made it.  The “café” was an unmarked, unremarkable square building that didn’t seem to have an entrance except for one door with the same appearance as a back service door of a restaurant.  Uninviting, as if you shouldn’t use it.  But it’s the only choice.  I walked in to find a hallway.  The small room to the left was full of people and they looked at me expectantly, in the “Can we help you?” kind of way that’s more from surprise than from expectation.

“I’m looking for Icelandic Mountain Guides,” said a vexed I.

“They meet at the end of the other road,” someone replied.

 

I had to get back in the car and drive down, oh sod it, I’m not driving down there.  I’m walking.  It’s a few hundred meters.  I asked the guy in the building if there’s a bathroom there I could use and he said no, which I bet is a lie. I need a pit stop before a three-hour hike.

Down at the second end of the road, a few tour buses sat.  I asked a few if they were Icelandic Mountain Guides, and was told no; my guides are still on the last tour, probably coming back here now.  Hey, there’s their van, right there, parked and deserted.  Just sit and wait.  As for that bathroom, I walked 30 meters away behind the only large rock around.  I could see the glacier from where I sat, mighty and huge in the distance, and I took a photo.  If nothing else, I could walk close and say, yes, I’ve seen a glacier.

They were late.  I was sitting.  I imagined drafting a message saying “Thanks for not showing up!” and leaving it on their windshield, but no they showed up.  Two tour guides, one male, one female, were leading the charge, and the now-finished tour group dispersed.  They identified me quickly, and any resentment vanished.  Other people taking my tour showed up.  A younger woman from Toronto.  A Spaniard.  An older Swiss guy.  An Asian woman and her Western guy.  I was the only one even remotely on time.

 

The glacier surface is covered with small ash pyramids, making one nervous as to how they were made.

 

Only the female tour guide is leading us; we must be a smaller group.  A dozen of us.  I never got the guide’s name and so I’ll have to name her Briet for this story.  She was archetypical Scandinavian.  Tall, powerful, very blonde, fair skin, beautiful, perhaps about 28.  One could imagine her swinging a broadsword.

Their van had sets of pants, jackets, boots, and even hats for us.  What do we need?  I needed boots, the previous email had told me, because the crampons won’t fit over sneakers well, even my red chunky ones.  I asked about pants, since other people were putting them on.  Are jeans okay?  “It’s definitely going to rain,” Briet said, a statement that’s always true anytime in Iceland, and so I slid on a pair of their waterproof pants.  Icelandic Mountain Guides says on their website they charge 1,000 ISK ($9) for these extra things, but no one worried about that on site.  You should take what they have.

“Do you have a hat?” Briet asked me.  I didn’t, just the hood on my jacket.  “Do you want one?”  She held up two, one plain black and one ski hat with the colors of the Icelandic flag in it.  “Oooh, Iceland,” I cried, and it was mine.  One person in our group took my photo before we went out, and he positioned me so that I had people directly behind me, ruining the shot.

After each getting crampons and an ice axe, we set out across the rocky plain.  Before the glacier starts, a small lake is in front.  Briet told us that the glacier used to extend all the way here, but it’s retreating.  Several icebergs were floating in the lake, which Briet said weren’t there the previous day.  They had just appeared this morning, so we were lucky to see them.

 

A group of hikers sets out

 

A glacier looms. It’s not flat ice spread before you.  It towers above you.  The ice at the edge has been pushed a long way before it got to the edge, so it builds up.  It doesn’t gently taper off.  You have to climb up to it.

The ground in front of the glacier was typical Iceland–black.  Black rocks and soot and ash.  At this spot, all the various tour groups were suiting up.  Places like Everest base camp must be like this, all the groups together, not exactly in competition but each with their own agenda.  We found a spot, and Briet instructed us on how to put the crampons on.  She never showed us anything about the red-handled ice axes, no self-arrests or anything.  We just carried them around.  There’s a protocol about walking with crampons:  keep your feet apart, as you could catch the spikes on the inside of your other leg and tear your pants.  Keep your feet flat, obviously.  Don’t walk lightly.  You want to walk doing a bit of a stomp to get the spikes into the ice.

“We’ve never lost anyone on this tour,” Briet said.  “Don’t worry.”

We climbed some stairs that Briet said she and the other guides had carved out this morning.  And then we were on the glacier, walking on water.  We had to follow Briet almost exactly in a line, since we had to walk where she walked.  We couldn’t all fan out behind her, meandering, since part of her job was to decide what part of the ice was safe to walk on.  She very often kept us away from the edges of cracks, and sometimes stressed the single-file rule.  Occasionally, she would tell us all to stay put and then dart away to check something out.

The three hours on the ice isn’t just walking.  Briet told us much about the glacier, how it works, how the cracks and crevices appear, how the melting water creates little and sometimes not so little rivers.  A glacier is alive, moving, changing.  We spent tons of time looking down cracks, some of them very deep.  Whenever we would see a type of sinkhole, we checked it out.  We all had cameras and thus took oodles of photos.

The photos were a bit hard, as elsewhere in Iceland.  The sky was washed out and it kept raining.  The whole country is a great photo spot but awfully challenging.

 

At one point, Briet was telling us something about Icelandic culture and I asked her about elves, since it somehow segued nicely into that.  Elves are a part of Icelandic lore, a bit like how leprechauns are to Ireland, but more contemporary.  At the mention of elves, she was off.  I had read that Icelanders are a bit sensitive about the subject, in that no of course they don’t really truly believe in elves but yes they sort of do, perhaps like some Americans believe in angels.  She told us two stories about her grandparents, about how a tree was cut down and it disturbed the elves.  Construction equipment then stopped working, replacement equipment didn’t work, and so on.  Her grandmother had to bring some gift, like a cup of fresh milk, to the tree every day for a year and then the elves were placated.  Her take-away from this was “Don’t mess with the elves.”  The story went on for a while and I could tell some of our group lost interest, but it was very interesting to see a somewhat young Icelander be so serious about the subject.

The weather continued to do what Iceland weather does, changing every half hour.  It rained, but never hard, sunshine, but not much, wind, just a bit.  Briet told us she doesn’t mind any weather in particular, not snow, rain, anything, but she just hates the change.  She told me that it basically never stops raining here in the south.

A glacier is not flat.  It’s constant climbing challenges.  The ice is rolling and split and has drops.  Large portions of it are not safe for walking, or if they are, only in narrow pathways.  There are constant water runoffs; you hear running water all around you.  The ice is not white, and not always so blue either, except in the cracks where the blue is astounding.  It’s gray and it’s dirty on the surface.  It’s covered with ash mounds piled so conically perfect that they seem planned.  There are ridges where the rocks pushed through and stick up.  The moving ice makes bulges that can’t be climbed; you have to pick your path.  The crevasses are sometimes just a seam, but you don’t want to walk on them.

 

Our glacier was surrounded on two sides by mountain ridges, from which slivers of waterfalls came down.  The ice extended into the distance, but visibility wasn’t great.  You did not get the impression that the ice extended forever; you just couldn’t see.  The sky began to haze after a certain distance, and everything went foggy.

Before the hike, I had read much about how dangerous it could be to hike on a glacier without a guide.  Now, I wouldn’t even dream of it.  If, gentle reader, you have been thinking that you wouldn’t want to pay for a glacier hike, that you would just do it on your own, let me firmly dissuade you.  Your body would simply disappear, to be found 5,000 years later as the “Ice Woman” or “Ice Man” and placed in a museum as a special exhibition, along with the examples of your primitive technology found on you.  As we descended, Briet pointed out two guys slipping their way up the glacier.  “This is what it’s like when you don’t have crampons,” she said, as we watched them.  They were shorn only in sneakers, and they were effectively crawling up the ice, not being able to keep their footing.  They were laughing and shouting up to the climbing group above, where, it seems, their friend was practicing.  They were climbing to join him.

“But if they get in trouble, guess who has to save them,” Briet said.

“So there’s no rule about having crampons on the glacier?” I asked.

“No rules about anything.  If you want to come to the glacier or anywhere, you can,” she replied.  Those guys were clearly idiots.

We were coming to the end, and I was ready.  Three hours is a good length, though I would gladly sign up for a full-day hike.  Near the end, one or two people wanted photos with Briet, and that started a trend where everyone got in line for individual photos.  One brave guy put his arm around her for the photo, and after that every guy had to hug her.

 

Back at the van, I thanked Briet for everything and gave her back the pants.  “Oh, and this is yours,” I added, taking off the Iceland hat.

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?” Briet asked me, to my astonishment.

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure, it’s okay.”

“Oh, that’s awesome!” I exclaimed.  I loved that hat.

 

I put the hat back on my head and drove away, back on the land.

 

If you’re interested in Iceland, read here about a waterfall walk that you absolutely must take, and read here about the capital Reykjavik.