Picnic Place

Trek, Day 3, 17 km towards Landmannalaugar. We walked around this lake, Lifrafjallavatn, watching the the cloudy sky and the rays of sun shining through. We stopped for a long, languid lunch at the crest of the ridge where I took this photo. I especially like the reflections in the calm surface of the lake and the mysterious horizontal band of turquoise or aquamarine blue running from the highlighted headline on the right. It disappeared after only a few minutes.

After another long steady climb after crossing route F225 (F routes are only open to fully-equipped four-wheel super Jeeps) we took the easy route to the Landmannalaugar Hut down through the Vondugil Valley and through the Laugarhraun laval field. An exhilarating 8 1/4 hour day.

Laugavegur Trail

Paulette and I are back from Iceland raving about our adventures. We trekked the Hellismannaleid Trail and the better known Laugavegur Trail for six days. Day 4 dawned wet and windy at the Landmannalaugar Hut. The warden made the rounds telling everybody the route south to Hraftinnusker Hut, 4-6 hours distant, was closed due to high winds on the elevated plateau. Happily we were given the go-ahead to make the hike if we could be ready to leave before 9 am. The winds were reportedly picking up so we needed to cover the 12 km as quickly as possible.

This view of the multicoloured rhyolite mountains does not show the high winds nor the rain at my back. The dark gray band in the foreground is a snowfield covered with a wet, goopy layer of volcanic ash from the nearby eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Snowfields are regularly stained by blowing volcanic ash but nothing like this year.

I bravely took twelve pictures during our three-and-half-hour dash to the Hraftinnusker Hut where we received a very warm welcome by Kerstin Langenberger, its friendly warden and accomplished photographer.

Although this stormy walk was a test of our mental and physical powers, it has become a memorable highlight, one of the first stories we tell about our trip.

With 2000+ pictures to edit more Iceland posts will follow.