Not so terra firma
A week hiking the legendary Laugavegur Trail in IcelandIceland can seem daunting and impenetrable. And that’s just placenames which are as much of a challenge as the topography. In fact, while there trekking one of the world’s greatest trails, one struggles for the vocabulary to do justice to a breath-taking land thrown up – literally – by its precarious perch on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Volcanoes and geysers, tumbling waterfalls and bubbling hot springs, the terra is far from firma. And trolls seem to have as much substance and often better press than Icelandic bankers.
I was there with a group of hikers who
spend most Sunday mornings on the Wicklow Mountains, followed by a spicy
goulash in the Roundwood Inn. We’d been tempted to the Laugavegur,
a world-famous walk of some 55km from Landmannalaugar to Þórsmörk in Iceland’s south-west.
First however, there was the not insubstantial
matter of duty free. As intimidating as the hiking was said to be, talk of the
price of drink had prompted much pre-trip speculation. But we’d discovered duty
free can be bought in Reykjavik’s Keflavík Airport on
the way in. Moreover, it can be ordered in advance. The spartan practicality of
huts along the route was to be somewhat ameliorated by a couple of trolleys of wine
and beer. There was the risk of dehydration for 16 thirsty walkers after all.
The following day we were to tackle Mount Hekla,
which last erupted in 2000. Before that, a stop-off at the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, Iceland’s most popular tourist attraction. Described as “one of
the earth’s most awesome places” (OMG!) by National Geographic magazine, it’s a
smoky-azure blue lake with frosted edges of crusty silica, whose water is a bath-like
37ºC.
Reputed to have all sorts of beneficial skin effects,
the greatest surprise of this fabulous natural wonder is it’s not at all what
it seems. The hot geothermal saltwater which feeds the lagoon has actually been
cooled before its arrival by a visit to the local geothermal power station
which initially uses the super-heated steam surging up from 2km underground to
drive turbines and harvest heat. Iceland’s perception-twisting begins.
“The Gates of Hell” is how Mount Hekla was known for
centuries, with up to 30 eruptions in recorded history and goodness knows how many
unrecorded. We climb it on an unseasonably gorgeous day, while our expert guide,
Jon – who along with our driver, also Jon, meant the entire gang totted up no
less than eight “Jons” – casually gave us geology 101.
At the summit, there’s a vulcanologist’s station and
an aluminium box protecting a visitor’s book. We spot entries from an Irish
father and daughter we know who had climbed it together earlier in the year to
mark her Leaving Cert. Sitting down on a narrow gravelly strip to have our sandwiches,
the realisation dawns that the ground isn’t exposed through climbers’ boot
steps, but because it’s piping hot. Catch the light right and you see steam
rising. And this is at 1,500m with snow on every side. Fire and ice indeed.
Helka's "hot" strip across the snowy summit |
The Laugavegur trail starts the next day and we’re
driven cross-country to the hut at Landmannalaugar in a customised mini-coach,
with four monster tyres and four-wheel drive. This Top-Gearesque transporter is
soon nicknamed “The Beast”. Off-road is on-road as far as driving Iceland is
concerned. You have to tip-toe fat tyres across snowfields and ash deserts and zigzag
fast-flowing glacial rivers. Jon the Driver and The Beast make it look easy.
Huts along the route are maintained by the Icelandic Touring Association and Landmannalaugar’s are spotless, if ascetically
furnished. Dorms with bunk beds are standard. As is no electricity, separate
chemical loos at a distance, and running water, a lottery. It’s like paradise following
a hard day on the trail. After a dinner of chicken stew rustled up on a gas
ring and the first few bottles of duty free are uncorked, we don head torches
and swimming togs to brave the freezing night for a spot a few hundred metres
from our isolated hut. There’s a hot spring pond. We lie in waist-high hot
water among reeds, gazing up at a spilt galaxy of Milky Way untroubled by light
pollution. Except for the nascent glimmering of distant Northern Lights. Later,
world-class snoring kicks in and tomorrow, it’s 25km to Hvanngil Hut.
Iceland is being wrent asunder. And not just because
of the “economical” crisis which the Jons patiently field questions about. The
island’s existence results from being at the boundary of the North American and
Eurasian tectonic plates. And they’re drifting apart, pulling two sides of Iceland
east and west by as much as 2cm a year.
There are all sorts of manifestations of this
shifting underworld. Sulphurous steam pumps out of holes in the ground.
Hillside streams might be glacial cold or scalding hot. Shiny obsidian fields
give way to black ash deserts. Vast, sheer canyons are deep-etched by
improbably powerful rivers. Beautiful vistas unfold, and yet they’re unlike
anything any of us have seen before, as if it’s an old Polaroid where the
colours are doing their own thing.
Surging rivers must be waded. Some of us roll our
trousers up, while others strip to their undies. Boots are slung around necks.
It’s all a bit touch and go as the icy water rushes up around our nether
regions. A slip would be bloody cold – if hilarious to the rest - and the
current can be so strong that we have to cross with arms linked like some
demented can-can troupe. We agree that photographic evidence of these crossings
is to be strictly controlled: there’s little dignity in the knickers and
shell-jackets look.
Ludwik the cook somehow arranges packed lunches for
all each day. Foal (yes) sandwiches are euphemistically referred to as smoked
lamb. He calculates our diet in terms of kilos per person and we need it. The
days are long and tiring, and the wind, bone-cuttingly cold at times.
We make Emstrur huts and then Þórsmörk, the most
spacious accommodation to date with a fantastic view and coin-operated hot
showers: five minutes for 500 Kr. Luxury. The classic Laugavegur ends here, but we’ve signed up for an extra day to hike a
further 25kms over a pass to the coast.
Vast glaciers slip off their high mountain homes
along the horizon. About a tenth of the island is ice-capped, many sitting over
volcanoes, including Eyjafjallajökull, responsible for the infamous
plane-grounding ash cloud.
Next day we greet Michael O’Leary’s nemesis face to
face, as we skirt its still smoking flank. We get to climb a brand new
mountain spewed out in 2010, one side steep and thick with a leg-wearying fine
black ash. Almost blown off the top, the surface is so hot, it’s painful to sit
on. Later we follow a eye-watering series of waterfalls, one more spectacular
than the last until we clamber (in fact, we run, but that’s another story) down
the side of Skógafoss Waterfall, as it tumbles 60 meters to our
journey’s end at Skógar.
A week in
Iceland saw us making more of a fist of the placenames, but still lost for
words to evoke a proper sense of this incredible land, this geological toy-box.
We only saw one amazing corner of it. It blitzes expectations of a solid earth
and bombards the senses in every way. The Gates of Hell? I don’t think so.
We
flew with Iceland Express via Gatwick. The excellent Jons, Ludwik and The Beast
are with www.amazingtours.is. Find The Icelandic Touring Association at www.fi.is.
This appeared in The Irish Times Magazine on Dec 1, 2012