Iceland is one of the most beautiful places in the entire universe. The tiny island of 323,000 people contains every landscape from black sand beaches to rocky fjords to lush mossy green valleys to 1,000 meter deep ice caps to giant standalone volcanoes. Due to the volcanic nature of the island, nearly everything is heated and powered geothermally, and nearly every village has its own pool fed by natural hot springs. The capital city, Reykjavik, is incredibly clean and welcoming, and the locals are some of the friendliest I’ve encountered yet. The weather may not be the greatest, but in summer the 24 hours of daylight makes it always possible to wait for the rain to stop without sacrificing precious daylight hours.
My trip to Iceland began with a morning spent in Reykjavik before jumping on a bus into the mountains. My dad was coming home from a conference in London and I was heading back to Europe from the US, so it worked perfectly for us to meet halfway in Iceland.

 

Viking ship art in Reykjavik

 

Dried fish, an Icelandic favorite

 

Reykjavik

 

The bus took us out of the city and into the back country, eventually turning off the paved road onto a dirt path which appeared completely unsuitable for driving. Several rivers crossed the “road”, which would have been a major obstacle to any normal vehicle, but the bus driver plowed right through the rivers without any acknowledgement of the complete lack of bridges.

 

“yo fuck bridges,” said the Icelandic bus driver

 

We were dropped at Landmannalaugar, a little hut and giant campground in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by beautifully colorful snowy mountains and hot springs to bathe in. Landmannalaugar is the starting point for the incredibly beautiful and incredibly popular Laugavegur trail, a 55km trail that winds through every landscape Iceland has to offer, with options to stay in huts along the way or carry your own tent. If you ever visit Iceland, you really should hike the Laugavegur trail.

 

The hut and camping village and Landmannalaugar

 

The hot creek at Landmannalaugar, which was always either way too hot or way too cold

 

The types of names you have to remember when hiking in Iceland
Normally the trail is done in four days, but due to the extreme amount of snow still remaining at the first stopping point, and our complete lack of snow camping equipment, we opted to do it in three. This meant doing two days of hiking in the first day, for a total of 23km up to the highest point on the trail and then back down a steep decline to Lake Alftavatn. The trail wound through colorful steaming mountains filled with hot springs and fumaroles. At some points boiling water bubbled out of the mountain and large clouds of steam seeped out of every dip in the rocks.

 

Looking back at the colorful mountains in Landmannalaugar as we start the hike

 

Beginning the 23km day

 

Valleys of volcanic rock, snow, and hot springs

 

As we continued, the colorful volcanic landscape became more and more white until we were trudging through an endless field of snow. Kilometer after kilometer passed and there was still no end to the snow. We stopped at the hut at the top of the pass for a rest and were glad we had decided not to stay there, as it was very crowded and very snowy. Finally, after saying “it’s just over this hill” about 100 times, we came to a point where we could actually see beyond the snow, and we were treated to the most incredible view of lone volcanoes reaching all the way to the horizon. The trail steeply dropped off and we walked/slid our way down to the hut and campsite at lake Alftavatn, a few kilometers below.

 

Water boiling out of the volcano
Endless snowfields

 

The snow finally comes to an end!
backwards flannel: the best way to hike in cold weather

 

The campsite at Lake Alftavatn

 

The second day was quite a bit shorter than the first, but was no less beautiful. The trail wound up and down the hills, and we were at low enough elevation that the rivers were no longer frozen. This meant there were several rivers to cross, but similar to the roads in Iceland, hiking trails don’t have bridges either. It was a hilarious sight watching dozens of hikers take their pants off and waddle through the knee-deep water, clothed in warm jackets and giant backpacks but bottomless from the thighs down. Several more kilometers passed as we walked through a barren black volcanic desert, crossed another river or two, and finally reached the campground at Emstrur hut a few hours later.

 

One of many stream crossings where hikers waddle bottomless through freezing water

 

Majestic Iceland

 

A new landscape as we enter the volcanic desert

 

The gorge near the Emstrur campground
We woke up early the next morning to complete our journey to the end of the trail in Thorsmork. With the giant glaciers Myrdalsjokull and Eyjafjallajokull in sight, it began to rain for the first time yet on our trip. The sun never quite went away though, which meant we found ourselves walking next to a rainbow. With one last river crossing, we saw a peculiar sight: trees. These were the first trees we had seen yet on the hike. We were welcomed to the finish with a walk through the forest, a nice change after three days of beating sunlight.

 

Rainbow

 

The final stream crossing didn’t even require taking my pants off

 

That night was spent back in Reykjavik before renting a car and heading out to the east side of the island. We drove straight to Skaftafell, stopping to see a few waterfalls along the way. Skaftafell is a beautiful village at the base of several giant glaciers. From there it is possible to walk up to at least two of the glaciers, which seem small and snowy from a distance, but when you walk up to them you realize they are made up of towering 40+ft blocks of solid ice that carve their way through mountains. Anywhere from about 100m to well over a kilometer wide and up to 1,000m deep, it is absolutely breathtaking to stand next to such a massive amount of ice with the power to reshape entire mountain ranges.

 

Seljalandsfoss, with two Polish hitchhikers that we picked up

 

Fields of Lupin. A beautiful, but invasive, species
The glacier Svinafellsjokull

 

The glacier tongue reaches out into the valley, ending in a large iceberg-filled lagoon
The ice is formed when snow falls on the top of the mountain, and when the snow gets deep enough it weighs so much that it compresses into solid ice. As more and more snow falls, it pushes this ice down the mountain, taking chunks of rock along with it and carving valleys into the mountainside. The glacier tongue extends out from the valley, thousands of feet below the mountaintops where the ice was formed, where the climate is much warmer but the ice is so thick that it still melts very slowly. You can clearly see where the ice has acted as a bulldozer and pushed huge amounts of sand and dirt into mounds in front of the glacier.

 

Skaftafellsjokull spills down the valley

 

A closeup view of the white and blue glacier ice, taking rock and dirt along with it as it flows down the mountain

 

Since the glacier has melted and receded, these mounds have become a natural dam to hold back the meltwater, and a lagoon has formed, filled with icebergs which break off of the glacier. In Skaftafell, it is possible to walk up to the glacier tongue and the icebergs and even lick them, and in the larger glacial lagoons, Jokulsarlon and Fjallsarlon, it is possible to ride in a boat around the lagoon. When nearing the glacier you can feel the cold emanating from it, as if you’re walking into a giant outdoor refridgerator. We took a boat ride around Fjallsarlon, and it was incredible to see the deep blue color of the ice which had broken from the glacier just hours earlier. We also drove to Jokullsarlon, where the lagoon has an outlet to the North Atlantic Ocean, and you can see icebergs bobbing around in the waves. It is truly an incredible sight.

 

The icebergs appear bright blue just after the break from the glacier, and they turn white as they melt

 

Standing on an iceberg
Icebergs bob in the waves

 

Licking an iceberg

 

Fjallsarlon glacier lagoon

 

boat ride in Fjallsarlon
After our adventures in the Skaftafell area, my dad had to leave to go catch his flight, so he dropped me off in a town where I met up with my friends Clayton and Marisa, who happened to also be traveling Iceland at the same time. We found puffins, swam in a hot pool on a mountain, casually shotgunned, and I slept on the couch in the common room of their hotel that night. The next day was my last day in Iceland, and on the way back to Reykjavik we stopped at a river in Hveragerdi to swim in. The river was fed by hot springs and the entire valley was filled with steam. Like all hot springs, it was either too hot or too cold with no happy medium, but it was still an amazing experience in a beautiful location and definitely worth a visit.
 

 

Columnar basalt

 

Puffin!

 

Clayton, Marisa, and I at Skogafoss waterfall

 

A hot pool in the middle of nowhere

 

Hot spring-fed river

 

The hot river from above
That wraps up my experience in Iceland. So, if you weren’t already planning a trip to Iceland, I hope you are now!