Исландия август 2013

Day Four: the glaciers

We woke up in the Ice Lagoon and could not bring ourselves to leave this place...

The original plan was to spend the day exploring the Falljokull glacier (to the south from the campsite on the map). But things turned out to be more complicated. We first tried to reach the glacier from the west, but could not negotiate the moraines. Crossing the river was out of question. We hence returned to the car and decided to spend the day on a different glacier, Svinafelljokull (on the north in the map), and return to Falljokull the next day. Falljokull is a very interesting glacier and we wanted to spend a whole day exploring it.

The green tent shows the place where we stayed overnight.

The track is a simulation, as the real track did not get saved. Zoom in to see our hike on the glacier in more detail.

Breakfast with a view of the glacier...
The blue iceberg in the middle of the picture overturned with a big splash while we were sleeping. Apart from icebergs, we saw some seals in the lagoon.

The low tide in the morning left some dead icebergs to melt on the beach.

This river connects the lagoon with the ocean. The icebergs often get stuck, but after melting a little, break free with a splash. We saw some more seals here too.

The Svinafelljokull glacier was also difficult to climb on. We first tried to follow the west moraine but could not cross it. There was a bridge across the moraigne near the parking lot, but we were not allowed to cross it withiout being accompanied by a guide. We were getting sick of the civilisation. In the end we went around the lake below the glacier, hoping to climb on it from the other side.

This was the only day when it was too hot in a T-shirt.

Around the lake...

We are on the glacier! This was certainly worth it!. In the south, the glacier was bordered by a bright green grassy moraine. The colour contrast with the grey glacier was amazing.

We were walking among huge grey ice hills. We felt like we were walking on the backs of the whales.

We only spent a couple of hours on the glacer, but made time for a small climbing session

This is a photomontage (in case you did not figure it out yourself).

As were were planning to spend the next day in the same area, we stayed overnight in a campsite near the glacier. We hoped to take a dip in the hot pool that was advertised in the campsite. Unforutnately it was closed... At least we enjoyed the sunset!

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