Today's tour was called "Take a walk on the ice side", a journey to the frozen glacial tongue of Solheimajokull Glacier.
We were picked up from the hotel at 9am by the very efficient Reykjavik Excursions and were soon on our way along the South Western coast. The weather was forecast to improve although it was overcast on the summit of the volcanos as we drove over the pass and descended to the coastal plain. The coastal strip has a lot of volcanic ash visible. The guide explained that about 10-15 cm of ash creates a layer from which vegetation comes through after one summer. Thicker ash than this and the result is it takes longer for the vegetation to sprout. We saw areas where thick layers of ash is visible and other areas where the natural vegetation has already come through. This was caused by the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in April 2010 - the famous eruption which grounded air traffic over Europe. Eyjafjallajokull was hiding beneath the clouds on our outbound journey.
We arrived at the glacier and were fitted with crampons, harness and given an ice pick.
This glacier is receding very fast. The contrast between the white of the ice and the black ash, which is still very visible, is quite amazing. This with the blue of the sky, which was coming out from the cloud really gave us a picturesque environment.
Walking with crampons requires a purposeful digging each step into the ice with a wider step than normal. Quite easy after a few steps. The ice glare was quite noticeable as the transition lens in my glasses went very dark, like wearing sunglasses. We really enjoyed the mixture of ice and volcanic ash as we walked up the glacier. There were numerous ice formations including a tunnel we crawled through. It was a surreal experience. We had to be careful not to walk on fresh snow as this often hides deep crevasses, but to stick to the ice. We reached a point high up the glacier where it opened out through a wide valley stretching for 10 kilometres up the mountain. Another wonderful experience in this country of natural wonders.
It was time to head back down and to make the point that the glacier can be a dangerous place, our guide stepped on what he thought was hard snow and fell through into a frozen pool of water as he was trying to find a safe way down for us. He had thought it safe to walk on the frozen ice, but it gave way under his weight . We then became momentarily stranded as the guides had to prepare a path across a wide crevasse. What a great few hours on the glacier.
On the return to Reykjavik we stopped firstly at Skogafoss waterfall with a drop of 60 metres - made more spectacular by rainbows forming in the mist. Then another waterfall called Seljalandsfoss which had a path behind that Aaron ventured through -and got wet!
The photo shows Aaron and I on the glacier ready for action.
We returned to the hotel at 7 pm after a 10 hour tour.
What a day!