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Iceland 2019

Black rocks, green auroras

By Scott Richardson

September 19^th, 2019

Why? That’s the most common question I’m asked when I tell people I spent my vacation in Iceland.

Instagram is as full of selfies atop an abandoned DC-3 as it is with people stretching their arms out wide in front of a waterfall (in a yellow rain coat, of course). Yet, somehow, many people I interact with must have missed the craze of WOW Air, Justin Bieber music videos and blue lagoon faux-model shenanigans.

Iceland’s alluring landscapes drew me in: rugged sea cliffs, black sand beaches, basalt columns and skies glowing green with the aurora. After years of wanderlust and admiring friend’s photos (those WOW Air flights were really popular amongst my coworkers) I first visited the country in 2018. When I returned home, my wife picked me up from the airport and told me I’d be going back, but this time I was bringing her.

Fast-forward a few months and our friend Jim was looking for a way to celebrate finishing his degree. What started as a plan for an epic two-week jaunt through the Pacific Northwest soon turned into a return to Iceland, but with two of my best friends in tow.

Day 1: Reykjavík and The Golden Circle

I boarded a flight from Newark at 10:40pm, drank a glass of wine and passed out. At 8:20am, I saw a bit of daylight through the window shade and watched the ocean disappear as we landed in Keflavik.

Five minutes later, my travel mates and I had already cleared customs, bought local SIM cards and signed the rental car agreement. A cold blast of wind met us as we scanned the parking lot for our wishfully-named Skoda Superb. With bags, and three weary travelers packed in, we headed east toward Reykjavík.

Before we reached the city limits, we detoured for coffee. Or as we felt at the time: COFFEE! Two coffees, a couple donuts, a pastry and a cup of tea later, we quickly familiarized ourselves with the local grocery selection and ran back to the car to actually start our day.

After we parked on the street and got schooled in local parking meter procedure by a local, we headed to the tallest thing on the horizon: Hallgrimskirkja. The famous church looms large over the city, and it’s shape foreshadowed the rock formations we’d see throughout the country. We walked down the street, scouting our food options and ended up at The Sun Voyager, an artistic ode to exploration. The next thing we explored was a big bowl of authentic…Thai noodles. Okay, if there’s one common thread to this story it’s the enjoyment of all food not from Iceland.

Stomachs warmed and full, we found some street cats to pet, made one more stop for coffee, ahem, COFFEE! and headed to Þingvellir. Pronounced Thing-vell-ear, the park features a rift valley where we hiked between the edges of the mid-atlantic and eurasian tectonic plates. The beautiful mossy rocks and waterfalls distracted us from the horrific history of beheadings and drownings that occurred in the valley when it was used as a center of Icelandic politics for centuries.

Our next stop was a small crater lake called Kerið crater. The skies cleared and allowed sun to illuminate the vivid colors surrounding the lake which formed when an ancient volcano’s cone collapsed.

Our final stops of the day were two small waterfalls, a preview of the dozens we’d see dotting the landscape throughout the trip. We found Aegissufoss down the road from our airbnb. It’s more of a cascade than a grand waterfall, but it’s surrounded on one side by a wall of basalt columns and Mt. Hekla completes a beautiful landscape.

Day 2-3: Landmannalaugar

We started the day with COFFEE! at our airbnb and repacked our bags so they’d be comfortable to hike with. We leisurely walked through the grocery store to stock up on pasta, sauce and other provisions (chips, cookies…the necessities) before heading out to the interior highlands.

We boarded a bus for a two-hour drive over some rough roads, across a small river and arrived at Landmannalaugar. The area’s landscape is the most beautiful, mystifying and varied landscape I’ve visited. Its brightly rhyolite hills are a more colorful version of Death Valley’s Zubriske Point, while it’s lava fields are covered in bright green moss. We found our room in our communal bunkhouse, a small room for around eight people compared to the thirty-person room I stayed in last year, and headed to the kitchen to eat some sandwiches before setting out for a hike.

For our first hike, we headed to Bláhnúkur and started a steep ascent up the black surface of the mountain. As we slowly climbed, the landscape revealed crevices of multi-colored hills in one direction and a mix of obsidian black lava beds and moss in the other. At the top, we straddled a rocky cliff and took in the 360-degree view of the unspoiled volcanic landscape and glaciers on the horizon.

Walking down the other side of the mountain revealed mossy hills and an orange colored valley full of steaming fumaroles. I watched my travel mates struggle to find their footing as we descended and I casually walked the trail upright while they slid down on their butts. At the bottom, we struggled to keep track of the trail as we hopped across streams and found our way through the uncertain footing of the rocky lava fields.

Back in the hut, we made friends with anyone who had the foresight to bring matches. Fire acquired, we prepared our pasta and ate cookies until we could barely keep our eyes open, which happened to be around 8pm.

The next morning I woke up early, surprised with how well I slept. Last year, our night in Landmannalaugar was my worst night of sleep throughout the trip. People barbecued late into the night, yelled loudly as they celebrated their hikes and snored just as loud once they finally retired to the shared bunks. This year, the smaller upstairs room contained the activity downstairs, and I was exhausted from packing so much into the first two days of the trip.

I ventured out before the rest of the room woke up, in search of sunrise but skunked by clouds and fog that rolled over the valley. Eventually the sun found it’s way out, illuminating fresh snow on the hill tops, and I headed back to the bunkhouse to get the day started. We packed our bags and threw everything we had on our backs, we were now technically homeless until the bus came to pick us up at 4pm.

We picked out a five-to-six hour hike from the map and headed up another steep incline. I pitched the Suðurnámur trail as a walk along the ridge line. My fellow travelers soon began to doubt my judgment as one ridge turned into five with steep elevation changes between them. Their criticism softened as we took in the views of snow on the mountains contrasted by the roughness of the Laugahraun lava field below.

A few hops over some streams in the Vondugil valley and we were walking once more through the lava field and back to camp. Lunch consisted of CLIF bars, and a quick visit to a school-bus called the Mountain Mall rewarded us with some much needed COFFEE!

Landmannalaugar’s icing on the cake is it’s natural hot spring. My wife opted for a quick dip to relax her muscles after two days of hikes. Before long, we were back on the bus and across a small river and some rough roads back to our car.

Northern lights over Hella

One of the things that initially lured me into going to Iceland were photos of the northern lights dancing above its desolate landscapes. In the week leading up to the trip, the aurora forecast showed back-to-back nights of high auroral activity, while the weather forecast showed cloudy skies. Luckily, on our first night back from Landmannalaugar we were given clear skies and a great show.

Day 4: Completing the Golden Circle & exploring the South Coast

I don’t usually plan a trip with back-tracking in mind. I like to make progress towards a destination and continually move in that direction, usually only staying for one to two nights to avoid unnecessary driving time. On this trip, it was important to back-track a bit in order to share Iceland’s most popular spots with my friends, and break up the days of high physical exertion with days of car touring.

We woke up early and headed back to the Golden Circle, arriving at Geysir early in the morning. Although its namesake has stayed dormant for much of the past century, Strokkur erupted several times during our visit, shooting boiling water upwards and leaving behind a cloud of vapor in the cold air. Next we took a short drive to Gullfoss, a massive waterfall that flows into a narrow gorge.

We stopped for lunch in Hella, opting for some cheap grocery store sandwiches while loading up the cooler with provisions for dinner. Then we were on to our next waterfall, Seljalandsfoss, The beauty of this fall is the walk behind it. Down the path we discovered the “secret” waterfall, Gljúfrabúi. With a bit of creative maneuvering we walked into a mossy chasm and saw what looked like a storybook illustration version of a waterfall.

Back on solid ground (with only one our feet soaked from an accidental dip in the river), we headed east to Skógafoss. While none of us had a yellow rain-jacket, we still snapped some photos at the base of the waterfall and immediately posted them on instagram. Then we walked up the 527 steps to the top and explored the cascades up-river.

We hopped back into the car and drove toward Vik, detouring up a dirt hill to Dyrhólaey, a sea arch that was once an island. Its form reminds me of London Arch on the Great Ocean Road in Australia, only skinnier. From the overlook, we took in the sites of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier and the black sand beach of Reynisfjara.

We skipped a stop in Vik and headed straight to our airbnb, a small cabin on a farm called Jórvík where some sheep met us on our way in. We saved money on dinner out by cooking tacos in the cabin. We couldn’t quite figure out the taste of the meat…beef? Lamb? Horse?

Day 5: Rocks and canyons of the south coast

We woke up to sunny skies and headed straight to Skaftafell where I was hell-bent to finish a hike I abandoned a year earlier due to a packed schedule. The massive glaciers of the Vatnajökull ice field filled the horizon as we drove. The hike to Svartifoss, “the black waterfall,” was pretty easy. Once there, I picked out a spot in the river to grab some photos of the waterfall that took a year and two trips to Iceland to accomplish.

Since we were staying another night at the farm in Jórvík, we headed back west to explore some attractions we missed. First stop was the columnar basalt “dwarf rocks” of Dverghamrar. Then it was on to the mossy, oddly shaped Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon made famous in a Justin Bieber music video.

Finally we ventured back to Vik to explore the black sand beach at Reynisfjara where a rock slide had closed the more remote end of the beach I had walked last year. We splurged on an early dinner opting for burgers, beer and cider before heading back for a relaxing evening of obscure David Boreanaz TV shows.

While the aurora wasn’t projected to make much of a show, I made a habit of regularly walking outside to look up at the clear sky. First I kept myself bundled up in long-johns, winter coat, hat and gloves. While the endless expanse of stars was alluring, my goal was the aurora. Assuming I’d see nothing, I slipped back inside and out of the warm clothes to relax in gym shorts for the rest of the evening. Before bed I hopped outside for one last look and saw the aurora dancing across the sky. I alerted my travel mates who turned off the inside lights and watched from the bedroom window as I ran outside in my shorts to watch it wisp across the sky as the faint sunset glowed on the horizon.

Day 6: Hiking Falljökull glacier

While I’ve never been worried about my wife running off, somehow the combination of suiting her up in crampons and harness with an ice axe in her hand, paired with a British mountain guide made me a bit nervous. In all actuality, I was the only one in our group who wasn’t lured by his smile or accent.

Hiking up Falljökull, a glacial tongue of the larger Vatnajökull ice sheet, we used our carabiners to strap into uphill ascents to explore the crevices and moulins of the glacier. At the top, the ice took on a blue shade in the shadow of cloudy skies, while the nearby hillsides glowed with vivid greens when the sun poked through. On the way down, we walked through the remnants of a small ice cave which had yet to fully melt in the late-summer sun.

We opted for a cheap post-hike dinner at a nearby gas station before heading east toward Jökulsárlón. We knew we’d come back to explore the lagoon the following morning, but stopped for a quick visit before dusk.

That night we stayed in an extremely comfortable guesthouse just up the road from the glacier lagoon, complete with unlimited COFFEE! (And tea!) A bit caffeinated, I stepped out for my nightly ritual of hoping the aurora would appear. Seeing no action to the north, I pointed my camera south to catch what was left of the Milky Way core which was visible to the naked eye in the dark sky. Then a bit of green began to appear to the north, though only as a faint glow.

Day 7: Jökulsárlón

All of my weather apps agreed that the weather was going to exclusively exist of cloudy, rainy skies all day. My alarm woke me up at five and I could see pre-dawn color appearing through our guesthouse window. I gave my travel mates the option to sleep in or join me at Diamond Beach for sunrise. They happily got up and we drove the 10 minutes to a mostly empty beach.

While clouds rolled in to spoil a spectacular sunrise, enough color emerged to make the visit worthwhile. The vivid oranges of pinks of pre-dawn light contrasted well with the cool tones of the ice.

The only rude person I encountered during our trip approached me on Diamond Beach. Without a word, she appeared to my side and slowly creeped into the frame of my lens as I snapped long-exposures of the waves lapping against the beached ice. Before I knew it, she was on top of the ice shooting macros of its surface without a bit of courtesy to ask if she was in my way. I briefly considered the option of pushing the ice back into the ocean ruining her chances to take any more photos, but instead decided it was good time to head back to the guesthouse and pack up for the day (which meant of course, more COFFEE!)

Mid morning we made our way back to the glacier lagoon for a tour of the ice on a zodiac boat. Zippered up in float suits, we cruised around ice flows that had calved from the glacier and will float in the lagoon until they’re washed out to sea.

As we cruised closer to the glacier wall, we saw the colors get more vivid as freshly calved or overturned icebergs showed us their fresh blue ice, yet to be softened by the sun and oxygen. At one point, the boat turned right and I heard the boat captain say “Holy crap” as we saw an hue chasm of vivid blue ice contrast against the foggy mountain background.

Back on land, we spent a lazy day traveling the hour from Jökulsárlón to Höfn. The rain put a damper on much physical activity, so our first stop of the day was to a cafe for cake and COFFEE! (And tea for those of us less enthused by the hourly ritual of a coffee run). We then booked it straight to Höfn, toured a small museum and watched a film about the local volcanoes before finding a place to chow down on some Icelandic hot dogs (see, we found some authentic food). Minus a short hike along the harbor, we spent the rest of the day napping off our junk food induced coma.

Day 8: Höfn, Vestrahorn & waterfalls of East Iceland

We woke up and hoped for sun but were greeted with clouds instead. We left our guesthouse in Höfn and made the short drive to Vestrahorn, a spiky mountain right next to the coast. We stopped to pay a small entrance fee as the area is one of the few privately owned attractions in Iceland.The clouds and fog made an eery scene and obscured the peak. We quickly toured a haphazard viking village movie set nearby, and unimpressed, hit the road soon after.

Litlanesfoss and Hengifoss

Most of the drive from Höfn to Lagarfljót lake was sleepy: few cars, cloudy skies, foggy coast. We turned off of the Ring Road, where route 939 and 95 provided a bit more entertainment. With a mix of paved and gravel roads, we ascended up a cloudy, near zero visibility hill and wound our way down towards a lake and Iceland’s only forest: Hallormsstaðaskógur.

The skies began to clear as we hiked uphill towards Hengifoss, a waterfall surrounded by layers of red and black rock. On the way up, we saw Litlanesfoss, a tall waterfall surrounded by a wall of basalt columns. Further up the hlll we saw Hengifoss in the distance and walked along the river to get a better look. As we reached the base, the late afternoon sun emerged from behind the clouds and gave us a more magical view of the surrounding rocks.

Day 9: East Fjords

On our last full day in Iceland, we expected nothing but rain. My travel mates searched for an indoor activity, but East Iceland has…well, none. There’s a few museums, but trying to find one that was open on a Friday morning proved impossible. We drove to Seyðisfjörður along an amazingly beautiful road (famous for the long-boarding scene where Ben Stiller skates downhill in Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and found a roadside art exhibit. Brightly colored blocks and old televisions were supposed to represent the unrelenting winter and emptiness of east Iceland. As we cruised downhill toward the town, I stuck my phone out of the car window to capture the beautiful scene and lost my phone to a gust of wind, luckily finding it intact in the middle of the road behind us.

Just past Seyðisfjörður we explored an abandoned farmhouse and drove as far as we could on a Jeep trail. We stopped at a river crossing, parked the car and explored the rest of the trail on foot. We headed back to town for lunch and watched as a gust of wind downed a tourist’s drone.

Having already completed our day’s hike, we headed back to Egilsstaðir in search of a cafe for some afternoon cake and…you guessed it, COFFEE! (and tea). To our surprise, we found a cafe that offered an unlimited cake buffet. Deciding that was too risky, we opted for a single slice, but were able to serve it ourselves, which meant the helping could be generous.

Our epic adventure came to an end as we boarded a flight from the tiny airport in Egilsstaðir back to Reykjavik. We each had a window seat as we cruised above the Vatnajökull ice cap before low clouds obstructed our view. Back in the big city, we found an authentic…Pakistani restaurant for a late celebratory dinner and headed off to bed before our trans-Atlantic flight home the next morning.

Day 10: All good things come to an end

The only things to note about our final morning were our choices in commerce. First, we tried to overpay for an automated cup of COFFEE! at the bus station, but were foiled by its inability to accept a credit card. Once through security at the airport, we made questionable decisions at Duty Free to acquire some additional candy and a bottle of Brennivín to share with friends at home.

The alluring, rugged landscapes that drew me to Iceland didn’t disappoint. Sharing the experience of watching the northern lights, hiking a glacier and taking in all of the sites with my wife and good friend made the experience unforgettable.

While we failed to sample much of the local cuisine (let’s face it: fish is gross), we did drink approximately 80 cups of coffee in ten days, much to the chagrin of my tea-drinking wife who criticized our every stop to pee along the way.