Posts Tagged ‘travel’
Glymur Hike
On this trip, we selected a wide variety of overnight hotel accommodations, all of which offered pretty similar and thoroughly satisfying continental breakfast choices. The pub of Hotel Laxness offered most of the usual bread varieties, a toaster, jams, cheeses, hardboiled eggs, oatmeal porridge, beans, breakfast meats, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, sometimes pickled herring, yogurt, fruit, muesli cereal, sometimes a waffle, coffee, tea, juices that we had become familiar with from previous days.
We checked out of our rooms and set out for a 50-minute drive around the coastline of the Hvalfjörður fjord toward the Glymur waterfall. We didn’t tend to stop on the road to photograph sheep or horses that pepper the landscape but these three had just stepped off the road after stopping us, so I took a quick pic before we continued.
Glymur was one of the more challenging hikes we tackled.
In addition to areas of easy, wide trail, some rock hopping and a bit of hands and feet grappling at steep elevation changes were required.
Research had made us aware of a river crossing that consisted of a log and a cable hand-hold that can barely be discerned in the distance of the photo above (click to enlarge). We all agreed a decision could be made when we reached that point. I’m glad we chose to press on because the route included a pretty cool cave that was worth the experience.
When we dropped down to the river level, there was a couple just crossing that we were able to observe in action. The water flow was a raging torrent compared to the picture of the log crossing Cyndie had seen earlier. I found this example on the web:
This is what it looked like for us:
Mike was putting tension on the cable to reduce the wobble for the person crossing, the same as the guy had just done for the woman he was hiking with who preceded him. As if the water rushing over the rocks wasn’t enough to make it a “no-go” decision for us, seeing that the guy needed to duck under the cable and switch hands to get on the other side of it when reaching the log made it all the more convincing.
It meant we wouldn’t actually reach a view of the high drop of the Glymur Falls, but we were all just fine with that outcome, safe and dry as we were.
On the way back, we ventured to an outcrop that was way more dramatic than photos convey. Mike made a good effort to show the steepness.
We got all the adventure we wanted out of this hike on this day.
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Flowing Meltwaters
It would be remiss of me to leave out one of the rare shots of us soaking in Iceland. I found this image after yesterday’s post had already been published. Instead of adding it after the fact, this shot of three of us tubbing at our Blue View Cabin gets top billing today.
With our breakfast in the cabin, we listened to a replay of the debate between US presidential candidates that had happened at 1 a.m. our time. It was like dipping a toe back into the real world while we were on an adventure in Wonderland.
A quick 20-minute drive brought us to our first hike of the day to explore the falls at Bruarfoss.
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We chose the longer trek (4.4 miles out-and-back) that provided great views of a couple of smaller attractions on the way to the fascinating crevice in the middle of the brilliantly blue Brúará River, which is glacier melt from the Langjökull glacier.
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Our legs got a little break with a 45-minute drive to Thingvellir National Park, where we set off again to add more miles of hiking under very sunny skies.
One thing that still images cannot convey about the variety of waterfalls in Iceland is the majesty of the roar of massive quantities of flowing water endlessly cascading over and around breathtaking rock formations. They are right up there for stare-ability with flaming logs in an outdoor firepit. I could sit and watch the water for hours.
Happily, the four of us travelers turned out to have very similar satisfaction levels and found ourselves equally content to stay or move on with each new experience we encountered.
We were all pretty tickled to find our next overnight accommodations at Hotel Laxnes offered foldout balconies in our rooms.
This was the place with a pub that appealed to locals, a hot tub out back (which we quickly made use of), auto-scoring dart boards, and several game nooks.
We’ve already seen amazing things on this trip so far, but each new day continues to offer more and more. We are having the time of our lives.
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Self-Guiding Iceland
Our fifth day in Iceland started with a casual breakfast in our Blue View Cabin. The makings for a picnic lunch got packed while the Icelandic gales roared outside. We learned about lenticular clouds from Mike, given the perfect visual aids available in the big sky views above.
Setting our own agenda made it easy to switch up our itinerary and visit the Strokkur Geyser before the Gullfoss Waterfall simply because we came upon it first on the route from our cabin. The early hour and intense wind had us wrapped up tight against the elements.
After an extended wait, a construction worker happened by and informed us the big geyser wasn’t blowing. We adjusted our attention to another spot where Mike caught the eruption.
The assault of the freezing temperature and intense wind had us seeking brief respite in the shelter of the coffee shop before setting out again.
The breeze was no less challenging at Gullfoss, but the temperature was warming, and we generated some of our own warmth with the hiking to see the marvel of yet another unique and astounding waterfall.
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I found myself mesmerized by the visual of the spray rising out of the canyon to the top of the ridge where the gusts immediately and emphatically rushed it away.
Given our freedom to choose our agenda, we made a stop for a closer look at Skálholt Cathedral, which Barb had looked up for us.
Thankfully, they had preserved real history on the site, too.
It was a light day for our intrepid explorers and we made our way back to the little cabin for a soak in the hot tub, a little power lounging, and dinner from our groceries, continuing to enjoy the big sky views sheltered from the wind.
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Experiencing Iceland
It is not lost on me that we paid for seats on planes that spewed jet fuel exhaust and then rented a vehicle that burned diesel to witness a glacier melting in person.
May all the little changes toward expanding clean energy options continue to gain momentum toward reversing the runaway trend of carbon in the atmosphere.
On the subject of ethical dilemmas, I feel for the people of Iceland in the conflict of benefits vs. costs of the tourism industry. A comment from my friend, “You may have a hard time finding a local!” proved prophetic. Other than sharing parking and walking space with tourists from across the world, our interactions were with the two guides and a multitude of food and drink servers, some of whom shared that they hailed from France, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, and Greece.
In all, we probably held conversations with maybe five locals throughout our visit. Each one became more precious as a result of the scarcity of opportunity.
The island country of Iceland is smaller in area than the state of Minnesota, USA, and has a resident population close to that of the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. Adding a couple of million foreign tourists annually demonstrates why it might seem like everyone around you is from somewhere other than “here.”
From the masses at the airport and car rental companies coming and going without pause to the busy car parks and pay stations, it quickly becomes obvious that the tourists are swamping the number of residents.
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The first local we spoke with was several days in when we were at the bar of a quaint hotel that seemed like a local pub. The other three in my group were trying to educate the bartender/hotel receptionist about their drink requests when Barb noticed this guy politely waiting. She offered him a chance to place his simple order for “2 pints” so he wouldn’t have to wait.
He seemed proud when we reacted like lottery winners upon hearing he was born and raised in the area.
I found it difficult to process the obvious pounding the ground suffers from unrelenting foot traffic at each location of incredible beauty. Add to that the human tendency to violate marked boundaries intended to preserve fragile foliage or maintain safe viewing distances and locations. Those who can afford to travel flock to locations of outstanding scenery and, in so doing, trample the surroundings to dust.
It was humbling to find myself participating, which made it easier for me to simply wait for a turn at a photo vantage point or pause in a hike to avoid widening the path by walking around other people.
Indulge me in posting a few more views of the glacier ice that Cyndie captured.
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When we returned from the glacier and dropped off our ice axes and crampons, the fish & chips being served from the food trailer nearby caught my attention.
As is usual for me, I was halfway through devouring the treat before it occurred to me to take a photo.
I had no idea that it would turn out to be the very best version of fish & chips (my favorite menu item!) I would find during our visit. For those who know of the fish fry at Lost Land Lake Lodge in northern Wisconsin, this fried cod was almost equal, except for the fact it was even better.
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After Lagoon
After the exhilaration of the zodiac boat tour, it seemed like it would be hard to keep the thrills at such a high level, except our “super-planners” had packed each successive moment with more to see or do. There would be no time for a letdown. Even travel time in our rental SUV offered a constant barrage of unique and fascinating landscapes to keep our minds overflowing with wonder.
Plus, learning to decipher unfamiliar highway signage and coping with a combination of other unfamiliar tourist drivers and local business vehicles with their own sense of purpose on the narrow Ring Road offered video-game levels of challenge. We relied heavily on the voice directions coming from Mike’s phone plugged into the dash.
The glacier lagoon was the farthest eastward we would travel on the southeast coast, as we then circled back the way we’d come to visit the Svartifoss waterfall in the Skaftafell Nature Reserve. Just an easy 2-mile hike from the car park.
Barb’s step-counter tallied our total distance hiked over the whole trip at 54 miles. (That’s 87km for those of you wondering.) Two miles was hardly a blink for us, although all the hikes tended to involve a fair amount of elevation gain to be climbed, making mere distance an incomplete measure of effort required.
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The afternoon warmed considerably, making our stroll along the trail toward the main attraction more pleasant than we believed possible. Remember, we had been prepared to face cloudy days with chilly horizontal rain pelting us head to toe.
Each time we experienced more sun than clouds, I pinched myself to check if I was dreaming.
Ten miles further down the road, we arrived at our hotel for the next two nights. Appearing somewhat like a motel we might find on Route 66, Hotel Skaftafell proved to be classier than meets the eye. The restaurant was truly fine dining.
When I reached the pomegranate seeds in my salad, I remembered I had wanted to get some photos of our food.
For our entrees, Cyndie selected lamb,
and I chose cod. It was a work of art.
It was the end of only our second day. Wow. Really, just wow.
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Another World
Two things: I’ve described the intense, stiff wind and mentioned our luck with the weather, which applies pretty much to the entirety of our visit to Iceland. The wind was strong enough when we climbed down out of that giant bus at the location of their floating dock, one of the zodiac boats full of tourists returning from the previous cruise had difficulty landing.
The driver needed to come around for a second attempt. In the moment, it didn’t give me pause about what “too much” wind for such outings might look like.
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In an instant, we were on board and speeding away toward the glacier “finger,” bouncing along on the swells the way zodiac boats do.
Suddenly, I realized it was no longer windy. We had been transported to another world that bore little resemblance to our previous vantage point.
I’m uncertain if I remember correctly, but I vaguely recall hearing the distance from the mouth of the lagoon to the edge of the glacier was about 5km. Our guide was quick to provide conversions, so the five could have been miles.
It didn’t matter. It seemed like we must have gone a hundred miles.
Without wind, the blazing sunlight warmed things considerably and rewarded us with sightings of many sunbathing seals. The overly cute aquatic mammals love the lagoon because there is a broad selection of fish to eat and no predators to worry about. Makes for a perfect recipe for photo-happy tourists.
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Our guide described the limitations of getting closer to the icebergs since they are larger beneath the surface and can roll over unexpectedly. I asked about his familiarity with the lagoon, and he pointed out it is never the same twice. Icebergs appear and disappear constantly.
While we were idling as the guide took photos of each group, a significant mass calved away and splashed into the water. It is such a bittersweet experience. I never imagined I would witness this massive power of nature firsthand, but it was such an exclamation of how dramatically this glacier –all glaciers– is/are melting.
When the wave from the calving reached the flow in the picture on the right above, the ice broke into many pieces, and the seal slid out of sight into the water like this happens all the time. It was mesmerizing to have this all occur right before our eyes.
Our guide kept moving our boat around to provide additional spectacular views. Suddenly, he stopped and bent over the side of the boat and popped up with a chunk of the glacier for us to see and hold.
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We learned about the coloring of ice and how the different bands (wavelengths) of the rainbow contained in sunlight are absorbed or reflected based on the amount of air in the ice. That chunk has had all the air compressed out of it.
The return leg of the trip back to the dock brought us back to bouncing on high waves and wrenched us out of that dream world. This was only our second day, and we had probably just experienced one of the most fantastic adventures of a lifetime.
Spending that time close to icebergs in that lagoon was truly out of this world for me.
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Glacier Lagoon
First, let me say this about coughing with congested lungs. When mucus in the airway triggers a cough that clears said airway, the feeling is truly gratifying. When the same thing happens, and coughing can’t improve the endless degree of congestion, it gets really demoralizing.
At least the antibiotics appear to be winning the battle over the infection.
When plans were being laid for our visit to Iceland, the four of us agreed on a level of adventure that suited us. We passed on snorkeling the seam of tectonic plates, exploring caves, whale watching on the high seas, or donning helmets and roping in to learn ice climbing skills.
We did decide to take a little tour around icebergs on a zodiac boat. I’m not much of a boat guy, but I figured it was an adventure I could handle. The reward was greater than I imagined.
Pulling into the parking area of the JÖKULSÁRLÓN GLACIER LAGOON, a finger of the Vatnajökull Glacier (if I have my facts straight) after a 2-hour drive on a mostly sunny day, we found the views immediately invigorating.
I had never stood this close to giant icebergs. Awe-inspiring, to say the least. We were greeted by a stiff wind that whizzed the cold from all the ice past our bodies, doubling our stiffness.
Just wandering along the shore and ogling the fascinating ice flows with the actual finger of the glacier miles away in the background would have been satisfying enough for me.
Little pieces of perfectly clear ice chunks bobbed along the shore, giving us less incentive to check out Diamond Beach, where the tide can deposit the sparkling beauties on the black sand. Those results aren’t guaranteed from day to day.
In a much-appreciated break from the wind, we retreated to our vehicle (holding the doors firmly) for a picnic lunch of sandwiches from our groceries. This became an exercise we mastered after repeated choices to eat out of the wind.
I can’t say enough about the industrious planning by Cyndie and Barb to bring an insulated bag for cold foods, additional bags for shopping, and the smarts to make wonderful selections in buying provisions. We ate superbly on our own.
As the hour arrived for our reservation on the zodiac boat adventure, we were issued fancy-looking suits that may or may not have bought us some minutes in the case of falling overboard. The floatation vest was added separately, on top.
We then boarded the massive bus-on-steroids for a short drive to the floating dock where they make quick transfers unloading previous passengers and immediately helping the next group aboard.
A quick survey by the guide reveals our group includes folks from Australia, the Netherlands, and Texas, in addition to us.
Our guide introduces himself as, “Ben” from France. The English language works relatively seamlessly for interactions but when folks are talking among themselves, I think we heard most languages of the developed world throughout our entire 10-day visit.
The adventure on the water was so spectacular, that it deserves a post all its own. Tomorrow…
I need more rest.
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Iceland Arrival
We booked our airline tickets more than a year in advance of our chosen dates. We flew to Detroit to catch a plane to Reykjavik. That doubled my challenge of getting through security checkpoints without major complications. Cyndie and the Wilkuses enjoy TSA precheck privileges, so they went off and left me to fend with the standard security.
Yes, I forgot things in my pockets and had to double back and make a second go of it. Rookie traveler.
We flew overnight with a plan to sleep on the plane and be ready and raring to go upon arrival. That only sort of worked. We were all a bit bleary-eyed as we navigated our way through the airport and to the car rental office.
The process wasn’t exactly smooth, but it ultimately played out flawlessly. The agent mentioned car doors getting wrecked, and I asked how often that happens.
“At least one per week,” was her reply.
That triggered our establishing a mantra of Doors/Diesel/Dings to remind us of important details about our vehicle. Mike did the lion’s share of the driving and did a great service of parking in a direction that kept the wind pushing our doors closed instead of ripping them open.
We packed all our gear in and headed for the first scheduled stop on the itinerary Cyndie created: a bakery for coffee and pastries. Next, we found a grocery store and loaded up on lunch fixings. From there, we headed east along the south coast for our first waterfall, Seljalandsfoss.
The only way I knew that name is by looking it up just now on a copy of our itinerary. I was helpless against the local language and didn’t even try to cope with pronouncing the collections of letters forming words. If I heard someone else speak, I could try to mimic the sounds I was hearing, but the results were rarely pretty.
The waterfall, however, was gorgeous.
This beauty offers the feature of being able to walk behind to see the falls from underneath. We put on our rain pants and jackets and joined the conga line of tourists snapping photos and getting doused.
What did I do? I took a photo looking straight up, of course.
It’s a little disorienting.
It was official. We had arrived for the first adventure of our visit to Iceland. We learned how to pay for parking at each attraction. We made use of our rain pants right away. The rest of that first day included another waterfall, a lighthouse, a black beach, and, ultimately, a modern hotel on the Ring Road in the village of Vik.
After dinner at the hotel, sleep came easy.
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Iceland Trip
We are home from our great adventure of 10 days exploring portions of Iceland with our great friends, Mike and Barb Wilkus. Iceland is a very special place on this planet, and we are grateful that we were able to experience it in surprisingly nice weather and successfully achieve everything we planned without a glitch.
I found more trees than I expected!
But there was plenty of landscape without.
We hiked to a lot of waterfalls.
We saw a fascinating amount of varying geology that provided dramatically more vivid evidence of the earth’s history than where we live in Wisconsin.
We soaked in a number of geothermally heated pools and hot tubs, of which there are few photos out of respect for other bathers’ privacy and desires to avoid getting our cameras wet. We were able to experience the awesome spectacle of a glacier in real life, even as it was melting away beneath our feet. And finally, the good weather provided multiple nights of viewing the Aurora Borealis displays, which was a primary objective for Cyndie.
That was a special bonus.
There are many more photos (taken by all 4 of us) and stories that I hope to present soon. The planning for this trip began almost two years ago and included consultations with a travel agent and advice from one of my Brainstorms internet community members with first-hand knowledge. (Many thanks, JH!)
I cannot take any credit for preparations as ALL of the work was done by the other three. They collaborated to arrange our flights, rent a vehicle, plot a route, book rooms in different hotels and an Airbnb on a farm, and even make reservations for meals at some restaurants. They even packed necessary bags to facilitate grocery shopping so we could make our own meals at times and picnic in the car for lunch on a few different days.
Despite my distaste for traveling, particularly by airplane, the fact that Barb and Mike are such wonderful friends and Iceland is a place of such spectacular things to see and experience made it easy for me to truly enjoy this adventure.
There were only a few instances where I was reminded of the famous photo of many teams of mountain climbers waiting in a queue on the approach to the summit of Mount Everest. It was a rare instance when we were able to experience uncluttered views of waterfalls, volcano craters, geysers, or beaches. Early morning proved to be the secret to being the first car in the parking areas.
We didn’t have to deal with much in the way of precipitation in our locations, but high winds were a common occurrence. It made cool days into bitterly cold ones, threatened to hyper-extend door hinges in a moment of inattention, and even challenged our abilities to remain standing a few times. Made it feel like we were on an adventure, it did.
That was a fabulous trip, and I am lucky to have been included. I plan to write more about our experiences in the days ahead.
Thanks for returning to read after so many repeated days of tree trunks. I hugged our mother tree on our walk with Asher yesterday morning.
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Prime Condition
This is departure day for our Iceland adventure. After we take care of walking and feeding animals this morning, we are off duty for a couple of weeks. When all the work of preparing the property for our extended absence was completed yesterday, I experienced a profound sense of appreciation for this place we are able to call home.
September is the best month of the fall season and the weather the last few days has been glorious. With the property freshly mowed and fence lines trimmed, it looks like a picture postcard around here.
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I am grateful for all the trees. In all the photos I’ve seen of Iceland lately, I don’t recall seeing trees. That will be part of the adventure for me. I am going to a place that is dramatically unlike the forests of my favorite places in the world.
While we are away on vacation, I’ve scheduled a celebration of the big trees I logged (get it?) a couple of weeks ago with a daily salute to each one. A forest with 200-year-old trees is practically the opposite of being in Iceland. For some reason, I like the contradiction of that.
Take care of yourselves while I’m gone. I’ll tell ya all about it when we get back.
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Relative Something 