Iceland - a perfect place for a layover

    When we looked into cheap airline tickets to London/Dublin it turned out that IcelandAir had the best rates.  They also have the nice addition that you can have a layover in Reykjavik for up to a week at no extra cost.  It was a no-brainer for us that we would absolutely take advantage of the ability to stop at an island we have both wanted to go to for a long time.  After an excellent week in Durango with family and then another great week in Boulder, CO with friends we shouldered our pack and headed to DIA for our flight. 

We eagerly boarded our flight, fastened our seat belts, taxied out to the runway and then Whaaa whaaa.  :-(     Turns out our plane is broken and we had to go back to the gate and switch planes.  The second attempt at leaving worked and we left the United States behind with a brilliant red sunset over the Rocky Mountains being our last view of home for a long time (hopefully).  6 1/2 hours later we were in the middle of the North Atlantic on a wild volcanic glacier carved rock with hardly any people but a whole lot of sheep.  We also were not in Mexico/Arizona/Colorado anymore.  It was pretty much like Seattle in the middle of winter but it was 1 June.  Low 50's, completely grey and overcast with low clouds, windy, and drizzling intermittently.  To be able to see as much of the country as possible and to get to some of the trailheads we wanted we rented a car for maximum mobility.  We started off by camping in Reykjavik in the campground next to the hostel.  It was 1/4 of the price compared to the hostel and both Kathleen and I are in a phase where we are enjoying camping more then sleeping in a bed.  We stocked up on some groceries and went to a mall to look for camping fuel and a trail guide/map.  At the mall we discovered that golf appears to be the national sport of Iceland surprisingly.  After a nap we motivated and went back into town to find a pub that had live music playing. The crowd again reminded us of Seattle some.  Kathleen and I agreed that with the Viking influence that this was a good looking country.  The guys are hunks and the women gorgeous (if you like blonds).  They dress hip in a European fashion but there is also a lot of black clothes, dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings.  A great first night of music and people watching. 

    The next day was my birthday.  We drove out to Thingvellar National Park and did our first trail run. 

The park is in an area where the North American and European tectonic plates are pulling apart at the rate of 3mm per year.  Great clefts into the ground have been formed here and it is geothermally active.  Some of the clefts were dry but some had filled with water.

Our 4 hour run was through tundra and scrubby trees with areas of grass and a big lake to the south.  There was a big grassy area called Skogarkot in the middle and from this radiated trails like the spokes of a wheel.  We would run out one spoke and come back on another so the run took us through this central area several times.  There was also a beautiful waterfall cascading over one of the clefts formed by the earth splitting apart.

Turns out that compared to the even more spectacular falls we would see that this one was pretty tame.  In fact after the run we drove to a falls called Gullfoss that reminded me of Niagra Falls but not quite as big.

 

We spent that night at a campground next to an area called Geysir.  All night as we slept you could hear the water shooting into the sky every 5 to 8 minutes from a geyser that is almost as big as Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park.  I had heard whales breathing as I slept in Mexico but this was the first time I have slept to the sound of the Earth breathing. 

     The next place we went to run was an area called Skogar.  There is another huge falls here and a trail that follows the Skogaa river toward the center of the island. 

The weather had been nasty overnight.  It stopped raining long enough to get us to motivate but once we started it turned out to be a sucker hole and it soon started raining sideways.  It was an amazing run and would have been even more so if the visibility had been better.  Multiple massive waterfalls with a deep canyon that the river had carved and deep green hillsides around them. 

Above all of this was a snow covered ridge but we were not able to see this through the clouds.  We got close but never reached the snow because it was raining so hard that we became soaked and started to worry about becoming hypothermic.  This trail came close to being our favorite run in Iceland but was just beaten out by the last place we went, Vatnajokulsthjodgardur National Park (I would challenge you to say that 3 times real fast but it actually is a challenge to say it just once - a lot of Iceland has names that completely tie your tongue in knots plus they have letters that I had never seen before).

     Vatnajokul Glacier is considered the largest glacier in Europe and there is a large park associated with it.  We went to an area called Skaftafell where there was a network of trails that went to several of the glacial tongues stretching out into huge moraines.  The flat areas looked like something from the moon except for the braided river passing through it.  This was then flanked with large, steep, green sided mountains with streams and waterfalls cascading down them, and above it all a huge glacier with giant seracs and crevasses.  Our trail explored a variety of this terrain.  We initially climbed over a ridgeline that gave us an overview of the area before dropping into a beech forest.

Trees are a very rare thing in Iceland so this forest was quite the treat.  We then crossed a bridge over the river, went across the moraine, and then attempted to run up to the head of the valley.  The trail quickly degenerated to a path and soon even that disappeared.  The ground was quite boggy with multiple small streams that had to be crossed.  It was impossible to keep your feet dry. 

Eventually we cut out onto the rocks of the moraine that turned out to be quite runnable.  Once again though it started to rain so we turned around before reaching the complete head of the valley.  On the return we decided to take the lower loop.  We didn't notice the fine detail of the map until we got there but it turns out that there were 3 river crossings in a 500 meter section that we had to cross that were knee deep and flowing fast.  Our feet were freezing by the time we got across but then we noticed on the hillside that there was steam rising up with a faint trail going to the area.  We went there and found a natural hot springs with a pool built from rocks.  Our feet were soaked already so we waded in and soon had warm wet feet instead of cold wet ones. 

That helped us to get the last miles back across the moraine done to return to the Visitor Center and car.

There are a variety of options of trails to run in this park.  Single track and cross country, flat and hill.  It's definitely a place worth visiting. 

     The last days were spent on a road trip out to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula.  A large volcano sits in the middle of this area with another National Park around it.  There is also a lot of rugged beautiful coastline.  We also road tripped around the Hvalfjordur (Hval Fjord) which was another very scenic spot that we wish we had more time to have explored. 

     We really only were able to explore the Southwest corner of the island and even then we barely scratched the surface.  Both Kathleen and I have a huge desire to go back for a longer period of time and be able to see the other sections of the island and do something longer and more epic.  Also June is still early season with a lot of snow still in the mountains.  July, August, and September would probably offer better weather and more options to go deeper into the mountains.  One word of warning to potential visitors though. This place is expensive.  We car camped, cooked our own food on a camp stove, and only went out for drinks a couple of times and still spent close to $80 a day each (this does include the rental car cost with was our "accommodation").  That aside, the people were friendly and great and the scenery is to die for.  Go if you get a chance.