Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 6

Valahnúkur Circuit: 4.8km

It was drier than anticipated when I rose at 7:30.  The kitchen and main room were busy with a group of 10 or so Dutch cyclists who had stayed the night.  They seemed oblivious to the recommendation not to cross the river and, in the end, persuaded one of the wardens to hitch a trailer to the tractor and take their bikes across while they waded through somehow.  Later we heard they had made it, though not without a certain amount of falling over and enforced swimming.  Most of the others who wanted to cross were doing the ‘orange route’ round Tindfjöll while a few were waiting to hitch a ride on the mid-morning bus (tits or no tits).  Breakfast again consisted of bacon, eggs and pancakes with Mikko’s group.  As we put together something for lunch, including some leftover lamb, I made some crack about tearing the meat off the bone like a Viking.  ‘The most Pommie Viking ever,’ said Sarah.  Nothing like an Australian for puncturing your self-image.  When all that was done, Nadine and I helped HD carry the food boxes and sleeping bags – a lot of which had been left by a previous parties – down to the edge of the beach to be loaded onto the bus later.

Today we were taking a short hike over Valahnúkur, the ‘home mountain of Þórsmörk’, according to HD, like Esja is the home mountain of Reykjavík.  The path went from right outside the huts, following a line of pink flags that had been put out earlier for the Volcano Trail fell run.  It was a steep climb which felt warm at first but soon cooled down in a stiff breeze.  The top came soon enough and we were treated to fantastic views of all the river systems, of the leading edge of Eyjafjallajökull and far to the mountains in the north.  Cloud played around with us, hiding and revealing the views for a while.  It started to feel cold so we dropped down a series of steps on the north side.  Near the bottom, HD led us aside to a cave that could only be accessed by a bit of scrambling through some narrow squeezes (leaving the bags behind).  A couple of waterfalls trickled down from above the shallow overhangs.  ‘Definitely an elf home,’ said HD.  ‘Definite elf vibe,’ agreed Nadine.  HD also described the arc of the walls as ‘a singing cave’ and gave us a few notes.

‘Is that like rímur,’ I asked to a blank look.  ‘You know, traditional Icelandic singing?  Chanting?’

‘What, football chants?’ he replied.

‘No, rímur, the old songs.  R-I-M-U-R.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘rímur,’ with some extra aspiration on the initial ‘r’ revealing an Icelandic word rather than my incomprehensible grunt, apparently.  Nadine burst out laughing at the microscopic change.

It wasn’t far from there to Húsadalur, where there were small huts, ready-assembled tipis and a bar-restaurant.  This was also the start/finish of the impending fell race, so there were a lot of people hanging around and music was blaring out.  We went into the restaurant to eat our snacks and to help ourselves to hot drinks.  It was clearly closer to civilisation that where we had been for the last few days as there was mains electricity and free wifi, both of which we indulged in.  HD fancied a burger from the stall outside but they were ages getting set up and ages prepping the burgers.  In the end he didn’t really like it and left a load, despite it costing around £20.  I was a bit greedy and ate all mine.

Icelandic forest

We had a leisurely walk back to Langidalur where we found the buses were parked up at the other side of the river.  Kind of worrying.  HD went off to investigate but the bus set off our way before he returned.  There weren’t many passengers, which was a good thing as we took up most of the storage with all the boxes and sleeping bags.  HD gave a last ‘jæja’ and we boarded.  The river crossing was excitingly bumpy and occasionally scary, as we leaned over to one side or another.  I was feeling sleepy – perhaps because of all that food – but the scenery was still too good, and there were more river crossing to bounce over.  Only after we passed Seljalandsfoss and hit route 1 did I finally close my eyes.  And then, with a slight diversion for a car accident, we were back in the capital city and saying our sad goodbyes, with hugs and good wishes.

What a journey we had been through.  I tried to think how it had changed my relationship with Iceland.  Despite my many visits and previous explorations around the place, I think it deepened my appreciation of the country, of the wild heart that lies behind the shiny, modern front.  Aware of it before, but only in an abstract way, I had experienced it close up, in its full glory and terror.  HD said that doing the standard tourist sights along route 1 on the south coast was like looking at a picture of the country; we had done more than that, we had been inside the picture.  That felt right.  From Fjallabak, the back of the mountains, through their core and out the other side.  Not just looking but bearing withness

As we drove back on the bus, some Sigur Rós songs came unbidden into my mind (Ný Batteri and Njósnavélin, as it happens) as if this was the landscape they had been soundtracking all along.  They probably had been.  Jæja.

Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 5

Tindfjöll Circuit: 15.3km

Reveille was at the relatively late hour of 7:30.  The weather was set to improve so there was no rush.  Once more we grouped up with the other Artic Adventurers for breakfast.  From the magical food crates our guides conjured up, not just porridge, but bacon, scrambled eggs and pancakes.  Luxury!  HD explained his alternative plan, following the ‘orange route’ round the valley, plus some ‘HD specials’.  The other group said that they did the same route the day before and had loved it.  I hadn’t been entirely sure how I felt about not doing our original plan up to Fimmvörðuháls.  In one sense I had been feeling some relief at not having another long, hard day – the longest and hardest of the trek – when I was already feeling the effort of the previous days; on the other hand, it was a disappointment not to complete the schedule and not to visit the site of the infamous 2010 eruption.  This morning, I was quite happy to have an easier day and leave the big walk for another time, perhaps (maybe walking in from Skógar in the south).

Nadine had been suffering from a sore foot, so we set off at a more gentle pace than on the previous days, walking along by the river for a short period.  We soon turned off and started a steep ascent up a ridge of the jagged hill, Tindfjöll.  There was more botany to be seen amongst the birch, like forget-me-knots, grass of Parnassus and mushrooms.  On one section I was amazed to see a common spotted orchid, though its pink was looking distinctly jaded.  I had had no idea they grew so far north.

It was heavy work but the views were incredible.  There were great gouges and scoops taken out of the hillside, revealing the black soil beneath the trees; the many-branched Krossá lay below; the pointed hills climbed upwards into the clouds covering the tops of Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull.  There were waterfalls and twisted spikes of rock, one of which provided a place for us to sit and admire the views up the valley to the channels carved by rivers, and the tongues of glaciers dripping off the mountains like icing on a cake.  Perhaps I was getting used to the landscape, but I started to feel I could look at it without being overwhelmed now.  Perhaps it was just because we were taking our time.

We didn’t summit Tindfjöll but left the ‘orange route’ to traverse over a shoulder into a narrow valley, eventually dropping into a glade in a meander with an ‘elf church’ hill.  HD said it felt very much like somewhere the ‘hidden folk’ would come.  It was beautiful and peaceful so we sat down on the mossy ground for a quick snack, but mostly we were just absorbing the tranquillity.  After that we pushed on up to a wide, stony moorland with views far out to the north, as far as the hills by Álftavatn and those surrounding Tindfjallajökull (no relation).  Nearer at hand was the impressive cone of Rjúpnafell, a great looking peak with, HD told us, a bit of a scramble to the top and a narrow ridge between its two summits.  It was too much of an undertaking for us that day and instead we dropped into another flower-filled valley with a waterfall and a cave.

Our return route took us along a narrow, somewhat sketchy path at the side of a fearsome, jaggedly ruined valley at the back of Tindfjöll and then into the more genteel Slyppugil valley, full of trees including some quite tall spruce.  I casually asked about the sign for ‘Glugguhellir’.  ‘It means Window Cave,’ said HD, ‘Do you want to have a look?’  We had time and energy, so we dropped our packs and set off up an extremely steep set of steps.  A quick reward for this was another orchid, this time showing no signs of pink in its flowers.  My Flora Incognita app told me it was a northern green orchid (say what you see), which fitted perfectly with the description and distribution.  I was well chuffed with the find.

Glugguhellir

The path climbed on and on, feeling more like a bad idea with every gasping step.  However, we did arrive at the cave and enjoyed poking around inside and looking through the (natural) ‘windows’ formed by holes in its side.  HD thought the path was circular, though he hadn’t come that way since childhood.  We were game for an investigation and so we carried on, up and up, and across some excitingly narrow sections.  It became clear in the end that it wasn’t going to drop us back down into Slyppugil so we turned around and went back the way we had come.  Jæja.

It was turning into a beautiful evening so we sat outside for coffee and biscuits when we got back to the hut.  The Arctic Adventures group a day behind us had arrived, led by a Finnish bloke called Mikko, and again we joined forces for the evening (David et al having left).  The magic boxes this time revealed two legs of lamb that HD proposed we barbecue for the six of us (Mikko had two clients).  What a treat.  I had a shower, bought some beer off Simon, read my book and listened to the gossip, most of which revolved around crossing the river.  A big Australian woman, whom we had last seen at Landmannalaugar, was brusquely interrogating everyone.  ‘You, Aussie,’ she said to a girl travelling with her father; ‘Hey, America!’; ‘Guy with a book!’ (this was me).  The Australian girl, a tall, good-looking blonde, said she could hitch a lift on the bus, ‘If I bat my eyelids at the driver and show him my tits.’

Dinner was a proper feast.  Mikko produced a bottle of red wine, cooked up a mushroom sauce, found a jar of red cabbage and festooned the table with tealights.  The lamb, which had been seasoned and studded with garlic, was very well done but incredibly tasty – moist and tender.  Nadine and I shared the table with an Australian girl (another), Sarah, and a bloke from Seattle, though originally from Hong Kong, whose name I immediately forgot (Horace?)  After dessert of blackcurrant cheesecake we set to washing up, taken care of in no time, then retired to the settees to chat with the other guests over more drinks.  I had a quick look out for aurora before heading for bed about 10:30, this time following Nadine’s example and spreading myself across four mattresses, given we still had the room to ourselves.

HD and Nadine carving the lamb

Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 4

Emstrur – Langidalur: 16.5km

Despite the usual cacophony of snoring, it was probably my best night’s sleep.  Perhaps the tiredness was just catching up with me.  Everyone started to stutter into life around 6:30 but it was awkward to manoeuvre round the hut because of the lack of space, you were always in someone’s way or they were in yours.  Arnab cooked up a big pot of porridge for all 20 of us and somehow we contrived to eat that, wash up, make packed lunches and pack our bags without fisticuffs.  Jæja, we were ready to go for 8.

It was a sunny but cloudy day with a stunning view over the hills to the glacier.  The path set out over more gritty ash and moss, dipping up and down with Markarfljótsgljúfur keeping us company on our right.  The wind battered us as we pushed on finally to emerge onto a lava field of broken slabs of rock.  Einhryningur, the Unicorn Mountain or, more recently and anachronistically, the Rhino Mountain, appeared on the far side of the canyon and watched over us for a while.  HD set another furious pace through the rocks and distant basalt cliffs.  Anyone stopping for a photograph was quickly out the back of the peloton.  Once more I tried to get to grips with the landscape, a vast, textured nothingness, somewhere between presence and absence.  Later, when I got home, I found a number of out-of-focus pictures from both of my cameras, not taken that way deliberately and blurry in spite of their autofocus facilities.  It was as if the cameras, like me, couldn’t grasp what it was they were pointing at, the lens as dazzled as the eye by the geological wildness.

Finally we dropped down a low cliff and paused for a moment.  Ahead of us was the start of the forestry area.  We also encountered sheep for the first time since Landmannalaugar, which seemed to entertain the Americans.  More steep descending took us to across the Ljósá, where there was, thankfully, a bridge and we stopped amongst the birch trees for some food.  It was a botanist’s dream with bilberries, crowberries, juniper, wild thyme, lady’s bedstraw, lupins, mushrooms, fungi and many things I couldn’t hope to name.  The bilberries, on rather stunted plants, were a nice treat.

A track took us down to our final river crossing at the Þrongá where we found a couple of girls not wearing any trousers.  They informed us that the river was over knee height in places so we followed their lead and disrobed.  HD took his time looking where to cross and said that it had changed channels significantly since he last passed that way less than two weeks previously.  In the end he forged his way through with us, carefully, in his wake.  I buddied up with Sophie again and we clung on to each other through some shallow and some heart-stoppingly cold channels.  The final channel was the deepest and the strongest flow.  My trekking poles were a liability, being pushed by the current, so I held them out of the water.  Despite trying to follow HD’s advice, I found myself putting a foot in a hole and stumbling, saved by my partner.  Most of us tried to hurry out of the water, against the advice, and Nadine slipped onto one knee at the final hurdle.  All the same, we came through pretty much unscathed, sitting around cleaning the grit off our feet in a whirl of relieved chatter.

There were more ups and downs through the trees until we finally emerged with a view of the great valley of Þórsmörk, surrounded by spikey peaks and the looming, cloudy presence of Eyjafjallajökull.  At the final sign for the Laugavegur Trail, we exchanged high-fives and hugs, congratulating ourselves on making it.  All that was left was a stroll down to the Langidalur hut for coffee, biscuits and Nadine’s celebratory chocolates.  Before long it was time for those on the shorter trip to load up the bus and return to Reykjavík.  David set up a WhatsApp group, getting confused about the non-US numbers.  ‘What’s the +44 all about?  My phone keypad doesn’t have a plus.’  We explained how international dialling worked.  Even though I had struggled at times with the lack of solitude within the busy group, it felt emotional to be saying goodbye to everyone after all we had been through.  Nadine and I, the only two remaining, stood on the pebbly beach until the bus splashed off through the many channels of the Krossá.  Jæja.

HD now explained the problem with our planned onward trek to Fimmvörðuháls.  The route lay the other side of the river and the Krossá was uncrossable on foot, only via a vehicle.  The flow was too strong and too deep, there were too many channels for the mobile bridges to cover and the channels changed too frequently for the warden to keep up with.  Besides, the head warden, Simon, was overworked as his fellow wardens were a 67-year-old woman and a tiny Costa Rican girl, so the heavy-lifting was all down to him.  In fact, he was out in a tractor shovelling stones for the vehicle route and we could also hear a big road-mending machine away on the far side.  Instead of the crossing, HD would come up with a route on the near side of the river.

Our room was upstairs and, bliss, it was just the two of us in it, so we could spread out and enjoy some peace.  I called by the wardens’ hut to get a shower voucher and was led to the shop by the 67-year-old, a laconically droll Icelander.  Pointing at the beers she said, ‘This one is beer [Boli], this one is beer [Gull], and this one is wannabe beer [Pilsner at 2.25%].’  The shower was very hot, eventually.  It used quite a few of my voucher’s allocated 5 minutes just warming up.

Back at the hut an Irish bloke called David was greeted warmly by HD.  He also worked for Artic Adventures and had five clients with him – a German father and son, an Australian couple and a Maltese bloke – who hadn’t been able to cross the river.  The Langidalur Hut was posh enough to have a large dining area and a few sofas to lounge one.  So lounge we did, sitting around chatting.  We also teamed up for dinner, which was a huge and delicious pan of spaghetti bolognese.  I had about three helpings but there was still enough to feed other stragglers, starving from their boil-in-the-bag meals.  One of them was another Australian who had been waiting to cross the river for two days.  She was giving up and getting the evening bus out.  Coincidentally she worked in the same building as Nadine in Geneva, so they had plenty to chat about.

Just as we started the meal, Simon the warden came in, saying he was going out to look for ‘an Asian man’ who had been reported missing on the trail.  HD shoved two big scoops of spag bol down, took a slurp of beer, then headed out with him.  David prowled restlessly for a while before also going out later.  We were left to nurse our concerns.  After more chatting and a bit of reading, I turned in at 9pm.  Mistakenly I had laid my bed out along a mattress with my head under the low eaves.  I bumped it about three times just lying down and regretted not following Nadine’s example and lying right across all four mattresses.  It was a bit late for me to rearrange as she was already asleep on the other side of the room.  Just after 10pm, HD poked his head through the door to say everything was ok, the lost person had been found.  It was good to hear.

The full story was that the ‘Asian’ man’s wife had been taken ill and had to be transported to the end of the trail while he walked on, though he was rather at the end of his tether as our group passed him (I don’t remember that bit).  HD and Simon had set off back up the trail, asking people about him.  It was clear he wasn’t on the trail so they went off to Húsadalur and the Volcano Huts (commercial accommodation about 2km away).  Apparently Simon burst into the restaurant and announced, ‘Has anyone seen an Asian man?’  The confusion was slowly resolved and several people came forward to say the man had already left on a bus.  The intrepid searchers grabbed themselves a beer, which is how David found them.  And, he said, rescued them.  Jæja.

Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 3

Álftavatn – Emstrur: 19.6km

The beer helped Swasti’s snoring boom out like a cross between a foghorn and a pneumatic drill.  During the night Laurie complained to Karl, trying to get him to give Swasti a nudge.  When she fell asleep she added to the volume (later, when she was complaining about Swasti and was told about her snoring, she replied, ‘Good, it means I did get some sleep.’)  The room was cooler than before, thanks to Coen leaving the window wide open to the gales.  It was just a shame the zip on my sleeping bag wasn’t working – it was too dark and cramped to work out why – so I could only try to wrap it around me.  This qualified it as the worst night of the trip.

There was porridge and other bits for breakfast.  I was introduced to the idea of putting drinking chocolate in my porridge and it was a game changer.  Who knew?  The forecast was for a wet day so we fiddled about packing our bags appropriately.  But we walked outside to find that, although it was windy, it wasn’t raining that much and it wasn’t that cold.  We headed out into the grey day, climbing a little way through a mossy, dark landscape with the hills largely shrouded in cloud.  It wasn’t long before we came to our first river crossing which was mercifully brief but very gritty.

We climbed a little more before dropping down to the collection of huts at Hvanngil.  Again there was a ‘dining’ hut which was a busy place.  Luckily some people were just leaving so we could squeeze into the upstairs room for second breakfast/first lunch.  It was good to be out of the wind but the rattle of raindrops on the windows was ominous.  As it happened, on emerging from the hut, it wasn’t really raining but it did feel cold, so a few of us, including me, added extra layers.  The next obstacle was the Bláfjallakvísl river.  This one was very cold and quite deep, leading to a certain amount of profanity.  On the other side, HD led us a little way (over the moss) to look at an impressive waterfall on the same river.

Beyond here we crossed black plains of ash, deposited by the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010.  The ground changed subtly along the way with larger or smaller pebbles, or big rocks with ash blown against their windward sides.  Small clumps of grass had pushed through here and there, along with the ubiquitous thrift and sea campion.  We turned aside at a bridge by a basalt-walled waterfall (probably on the Innri-Emstruá river) for second lunch, huddling below some rocks for shelter.  I put my sunglasses on to keep the flying grit out of my eyes but my sandwich tasted rather crunchier than expected.

The path crossed more black desert with small, sharp-toothed and mossy hills around us.  The wind was at our backs and walkers coming the other way had scarfs over their mouths and glasses over their eyes.  HD set a furious pace and when we stopped for a pause, Karl and Laurie, who had been left behind, caught up and voiced their unhappiness about being dropped.  The pace thereafter was somewhat slower.  From the black plains we reached a kind of escarpment dropping towards Emstrur where the hills and blackness were cut through by narrow valleys, and where the unimaginable bulk of Mýrdalsjökull menaced on the far horizon, like some terrible disaster just waiting to happen.  I was flitting between amazement at what I was witnessing and grumbling over all the little gripes: all the people, the threat of more snoring later, the fiddling about with gloves and layers, the pace and the stop-start dictated by someone else.  Jæja, here we go again.

As we had zoomed along this section, HD suggested we had time to divert up to Markarfljótsgljúfur.  This is a 200m deep, very long, winding canyon created largely in a single eruption 2000 years ago.  It was a stunning sight, dizzyingly airy from a small standpoint at one bend.  The walls were a textbook in geology with differently coloured layers revealed.  HD pointed out to me where magma intrusions had pushed through weaknesses in the strata to leave other types of rock mixed amongst them.  The ravens, one of the few birds we had seen, were enjoying the space too, tumbling and calling in their customary way.

After a while we took the short walk to Emstrur hut.  It is perched very scenically looking out to valleys, hills and the glacier, but it was even more basic and even more cramped.  The beds were in two storeys in two sections, six below and above in one, four below and above in the other.  The mattresses were comically narrow, not much more than sleeping bag width.  For neighbours on one side I had a pleasant couple from San Francisco whom we had met at Álftavatn; and on the other side I had the wall.  I suggested I would sleep with my head out and they could sleep more traditionally.  ‘Yes,’ said the girl (whose name I missed), ‘that’s better feng shui.’

There was little storage, just a vestibule by the front door with a gas fire burning to dry out the great collection of damp gear we hung around it.  There was hardly room for us all to eat at once either, though there was plenty of space outside to admire the wonderful views, if you could stand the wind and the cold.  I sat on my ‘bed’ reading with a headtorch (it was a dark corner on the lower bunk) and sipping some brennivín.  Most of the rest had a lively conversation round the table, which veered dangerously into politics for a moment before being steered rapidly away.

HD kicked off the barbecue and roasted some fantastic salmon steaks.  Arnab boiled up a staggering amount of rice – however much we ate it never seemed to reduce.  There was plenty of everything so, as usual, the leftovers were shared out amongst the other hut residents who, as usual, received them gladly.  After dinner, I was feeling tired so I headed back to my bunk to read.  A card school took over the dining table, playing some hideously complicated game that HD had explained.  It was all too much for me and I lay my head down to sleep.

Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 2

Landmannalaugar – Álftavatn: 22.2km

The night was as awful as anticipated.  My sleep was fitful, between the heat of the room – I barely needed even my sleeping bag liner – the polyphonic chorus of snoring, and the alarming propinquity of strangers.  I had one trip to the messy toilets in the night.  It was raining.

We rose around 6:45 and tried to organise our bags as best as possible in the narrow confines of the room.  The poor French people tried to sleep on but didn’t stand much of a chance with all the zipping, fumbling and mumbling.  Breakfast at 7 consisted of salty porridge (an interesting combination with a spoonful of honey), muesli and various bits of fruit, chopped by Robert (from Vancouver).  I prepped some sandwiches from the cheese, salami and mushroom spread, as well as putting together a bag of trail mix with dates, chocolate raisins and salted peanuts (a novel combination again).

Having been cold the previous day, I packed more clothing but, as we assembled outside in the sunshine and clear skies, I found I was overdressed and needed to drop a layer.  We set off through the lava field again, this time by a different route, and entered into the rhyolite hills.  Every view was breathtaking and seemed to get better the further we progressed.  Smooth red mountains were cut by valleys and ridges, and were interspersed with harder rocks which left spikes, gnarly crags and great lumps, like gigantic lava cowpats.  The path climbed steadily up, past steaming vents and glowing tarns, deeper into the mountains.  It was hard to process the strangeness and vastness of the place.  These weirdly coloured hills with snow and steam on them stretched everywhere.  There were pools of bubbling grey mud in one place and a hot stream with a couple of little pools of bubbling water.  We pulled off the main path to sit by the stream for first lunch, inhaling the occasionally powerful smell of sulphur.  HD gave us a lesson in conservation: his grandmother had asked him to tell tourists ‘not to step on the moss’.  It was a rule that wasn’t strictly adhered to by anyone, including HD.

From here the geology changed again and became dominated by obsidian.  Shiny boulders of the rock were scattered all over the dark ground as we climbed higher towards Hrafntinnusker (1141m).   After passing the memorial to Ido Keinan, who died in a snowstorm in 2004, we crossed a compact tongue of snow on the hillside.  It sucked heat out of the air in the opposite way to the hot slopes near the fumaroles.  Being up quite high, a lot of the hills around us were streaked with snow, indeed a couple of weeks earlier the whole area had been covered in snow.  On this clear day we were treated to mind-blowing views of the still-snowy mountains, the mass of which dwarfed the isolated Hrafntinnusker huts below.  Around the huts were circles of stonewalls built to shelter tents but they looked like the remains of a Bronze Age village.  My legs had again been feeling the effort of crossing the terrain to get this far – it felt we were really amongst the mountains now – but walking through hill country is what I do for fun and I was loving the walk, even if it was a struggle make sense of what I was seeing.  As well as they, the enjoyment at the walking was fighting against the discomfort of staying in such cramped conditions with strangers so close.  The enjoyment was, on the whole I felt, winning, except that to achieve something that meant something to me, I had to push myself into another shape, almost accept a different way of being.  It was a test in many different ways.

The particular hut we stopped at was just for dining, so was filled only with tables and benches.  Being unheated it smelled rather of mould but at least it was out of the cold wind and we were ready for more food.  With that out of the way (time for a jæja) we had a long section passing through the snow-streaked black hills.  There were countless ups and downs on scree and soft ash slopes, which were energy sapping to climb.  My brain chose as its earworm a Doors’ song: ‘I’ve been down so goddamn long that it seems like up to me.’  The track took us through endless inventions of weirdness: yellow sulphur deposits, luminous green moss, banks of snow hovering on valley sides with water running underneath, psychedelic swirls of grit in the hillside snow, all kinds of crags, peaks and valleys.

Finally we looked out over a plain where Álftavatn lay.  Except it wasn’t really a plain as it was covered in narrow, sharp ridges of free-standing hills.  It was like a raw-from-the-forge, fire-blackened, unfinished version of Sutherland’s knock-and-lochan scenery, with Stórasúla rather than Suilven.  The sun was getting lower behind the hills by this time in the afternoon, giving the view a misty air, and glinting off the massive glacier of Mýrdalsjökull.  Again it felt unearthly, like a fantasy landscape we were approaching.  It took a long time to descend out of the mountains along scree paths to a river, the Grashagakvísl, our first proper crossing.  Perhaps because it was the first, it had a handy cable strung between boulders for us to hold onto.  It was cold but fairly brief, and the heat of the lower altitude helped warm us up after a day where we veered from hot in the sunshine to cold in the cloud and wind (a change which happened about every 5 minutes).  As the crossing was a bottleneck, there were quite a few people around, despite it having been a pretty quiet day.

The rest of the walk was a pacey stomp along a level track which took us to the Álftavatn huts.  They are in a spectacular location at the head of the shallow, sun-reflecting lake with hills to either side.  Inside the hut there was a good kitchen-dining room with our room upstairs.  The room was even smaller than Landmannalaugar and had less storage.  It was roasting hot though.  First order of the day was coffee and cake on the veranda, which we took in the sunshine looking over the lake.  It was blissful to sit there, me sipping brennivín, Amy sketching watercolours, Sophie knitting – the only problem was losing things between the boards (pen top, knitting needle).  Before dinner I grabbed a shower, which was warm but shabby, the floor being made of warped, damp plywood.

Given the lovely evening, we ate our dinner outside too.  HD cooked up a superb traditional Icelandic lamb soup.  Second helpings were everyone’s choice.  Some of the boys drank beer from the on-site restaurant and we all chatted.  Robert tried to convince us that the phrase, ‘That’ll do pig, that’ll do’ was from Lord of the Flies.  ‘It’s from Babe!’ we said, ‘They’re very different.’  He was very insistent until someone used the marginal data signal to look up the answer, after which he was suitably embarrassed.

We helped to wash and dry then I sat at the dining table to try to read.  This was a bit tricky as a loud Norwegian girl was engaging everyone in boisterous conversation, helped by the beers.  Instead I moved to the bedroom where a number of the party were reading or getting ready for bed.  When Laurie was ready she loudly insisted the lights should be turned off, even though she was wearing an eye-mask.  Essentially she chucked the ones who wanted to stay up out of the room.  Arnab and I were hoping for a bit of aurora action, given the clear skies, though the forecast for them was poor.  At 10pm we adjudged it was dark enough so we went out for a look and to make some attempts to at least take pictures of the stars, in the absence of anything else.  The stars did indeed look magnificent and innumerable.  The great arc of the Milky Way stretched over our heads and over the hut.  A big-wheeled 4x4 drove in along the dirt road with bright lights shining.  It stopped at the hut from where a bloke came out, chucked his bag in the car and climbed on board.  With that, it drove off again into the darkness.  Odd place for an Uber.  At 11pm we gave up on the Northern Lights and retreated to the hut, which, like all the huts, had a curfew then.  

Inside the Picture: the Laugavegur Trail - Day 1

Landmannalaugar – Bláhnúkur: 6.7km

The wind was blowing rain into my face and making me stagger as I leant on the summit pillar.  It was the first day of walking and my legs were already wobbly from the steep ascent.  Climbing on the soft grit had been hard work, following our group at a slightly higher pace than I would have chosen for myself.  ‘This is a mistake,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ve made a dreadful mistake.’

The anxiety had started earlier.  Earlier than the nervous wait for the bus in Reykjavík, earlier than finding myself alone in Iceland after my friends had left, earlier even than leaving Britain.  How would it all work?  Would the other people be ok?  Could I back out of it?

After a pre-dawn start at the City Hall bus stop, where I had briefly spoken to fellow trekkers Karl and Laurie, from Boulder, Colorado, I mostly slept on the highway to Hella (bet no one’s done that gag before, and it really doesn’t work if you pronounce the town’s name correctly, i.e. sort of like ‘Hetla’).  Anyway, the rain was battering down and it was thick fog over Hellisheiði, so it wasn’t like I was missing the views.  The bus was half-full with a mix of trekkers and daytrippers but filled up more completely while we stopped in Hella for breakfast.  After that we turned north through bleak, rather ghastly wastes of blankness and grey ash.  The road soon turned into a gravel one, not that a minor detail like that did anything to slow down the driver, who clattered his way over rocks and potholes with little regard for the way the vehicle shook and rattled.  There was one river crossing to do and we stopped just short of it.  I hoped there wasn’t a problem but it turned out we were picking up some passengers whose minibus had broken down.  I glanced back from the far side of the river to see someone bending down at the back of the forlorn bus, alone, abandoned.

The scenery became more attractive hereafter as jagged, moss-covered peaks rose around us.  On the far side of these was the wide, flat, sandy-looking valley around Landmannalaugar.  There were a lot of vehicles parked up, mostly chunky 4x4s and also a few buses.  We parked up right by the huts and tents to unload the bus, and to receive our instructions.  At this point we were introduced to our guide, ‘HD’, who directed us to our hut and to the room we would be sharing.  We were upstairs to one side.  The room was long, with sleeping platforms on either side and a dining table in the middle.  The platforms were covered in thin mattresses which essentially delineated the space you had to lie in without snuggling up to your neighbours.  I chucked my stuff down and hoped for the best.  It was all a lot more intimate that I had bargained for, which isn’t exactly my comfort zone.  At least we had a bit of space to spread out, even if there was nowhere really to put your bags.  Five nights of this kind of thing was a worrying prospect.

HD came up with lunch (bread, ham, cheese, fruit) which we sat around snacking on as he gave us an introduction.  His full name was Halldór Dagur Jósefsson but we could call him HD.  Each of us then went round giving a brief introduction.  Naturally I forgot half the names immediately.  We had a mix of Brits, Yanks, Canucks, a Cloggie and an Aussie.  The Sydneysider, Simon, turned out to be friends with ex-Sale Sharks fly-half, Mike Hercus.  It’s a small world.

Halldór (HD)

After the introductions, it was time to saddle up and go for a walk.  Our target was Bláhnúkur (945m) just by the huts.  At the start of the climb, HD gathered us together to explain how he would marshall us.  The first ‘jæja’ he would say would tell us to start getting our stuff together; the second ‘jæja’ meant we were leaving; the third ‘jæja’ we probably wouldn’t hear as he would already be gone (‘jæja’ kind of means ‘yeah, yeah’, but the semantics depend on context and intonation, so it means anything from ‘whatever’ to ‘yes, please’).  Next came the fearfully tough ascent which left me doubting myself.  I thought I was fit, I thought I was one of the fast walkers, how come I was blowing out of my backside already?  This was my first lesson in not underestimating the effort of hiking in Iceland.

Things got easier on the descent as we hit scree slopes, bread and butter terrain after spending so long in the Lake District.  The views of the rounded rhyolite hills and their many ridges and valleys were pretty amazing.  At the bottom we had our first lesson in river crossing.  We paired up to support each other (my partner was Sophie from NYC), then put on our special shoes and shuffled our way across.  It wasn’t too cold and it wasn’t too tricky, but then this had only been a practice to try out the techniques.

The route back was through a 700 year-old lava field that overlay the rhyolite.  It reminded me in some ways of Dimmuborgir up in the north, without being quite so huge.  With the wind and the rain I was starting to feel a little cold, which was another handy lesson in making sure you’ve brought enough warm layers with you.  Another way to warm up was to head for the eponymous hot pools back at Landmannalaugar.  Most of our group were heading that way so I joined in too, despite it being a 300m scamper along wooden boards then a freezing step into the pool once you had hung your coat up.  The busy pool was fed from a hot stream, the nearer to which you got, the hotter it felt.  It was only shallow so you had to lay back somewhat.  The floor was gritty with bubbles rising up from it now and again.  The floor was also rather hot so you couldn’t sit on it too long, meaning we were all shuffling around all the time.  Getting back out wasn’t an attractive prospect but we had little choice in the end, it was getting on for dinner time.

The hot pools at Landmannalaugar

For our evening meal we sat at the tables in the kitchen, crammed in with another party.  HD had rustled up pasta with cheese sauce and freshly carved smoked salmon.  It was rather tasty and demanded second helpings.  We all mucked in with the washing up and had a good laugh round the table, getting to know each other, being shocked by how many famous films Coen, the Dutchman, hasn’t seen.  Back in the room, three or four extra bodies, French folk, had been assigned to our room so it had got even cosier.  I chose to sleep ‘the wrong way round’, with my head at the foot of the bed, rather than gazing into Karl’s eyes to one side or a random Frenchwoman’s on the other.  I read for a while but none of us was late going to sleep.

Langdale 2024

1st August: Gummer’s How – Whitbarrow Scar – Cartmel Fell – Staveley Fell: 22km

Although it was well gone 9am, there was no one else in the Gummer’s How car park.  Some cloud was covering the high tops and a little whisp was playing with the summit of Gummer’s How.  I trotted off on a well-made path, passing some lethargic cattle, and making the summit in around 20 minutes, despite a little unexpected scrambling.  The cloud hadn’t entirely gone and the distant views were somewhat hazy.  On the way down I passed a group of four people and two spaniels.  It looked as though they had parked on the road rather than in the empty car park, oddly.

Gummer's How

Newby Bridge from Gummer's How

By Sow How Farm

By Sow How Farm

Heron by the River Winster

Tarmac’ed Sow How Lane became an unsurfaced invitation to the open countryside beyond the eponymous farm and it led on very pleasantly through woodland and fields, where grass and bracken were wet from the early rain I had left behind, to Thorphinsty Hall and over the River Winster.  Ahead loomed Whitbarrow Scar, looking squat and formidable with no obvious way up.  The route went by the grand Witherslack Hall (now Oversands School) and crossed over the football field, which sat right at the bottom of the limestone cliff.  This developed into a line of attack up the face, steep and slippery but not too unpleasant.  Beyond the trees the views opened up to fractured pale limestone covered in a wonderful array of wildflowers: scabious, harebells, hawkweed, tormentil, stitchwort, wild thyme, heather.  The trees were wind-bent away from the edge of the scar.  Around my feet there was juniper everywhere – I’ve never seen such profusion

Approaching Whitbarrow Scar

Whitbarrow Scar

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Whitbarrow Scar

Whitbarrow Scar

Whitbarrow Scar

Walking across the top was an absolute delight, between clints and grikes, amongst the scattered trees, with sunny views over the Winster and Lyth valleys.  Even the distant high fells were clearing up.  Eventually I dropped down by Bell Rake, amongst a great number of yew trees, and speculatively took a track, not a PROW, to Pool Bank, thus saving myself some distance and road-walking.  From there I cut across to Cartmel Fell and onto Raven’s Barrow, where I saw my first walkers since Gummer’s How 3.5hrs earlier.  I didn’t hang around the summit as it appeared to be Flying Ant Day hereabouts, instead pushing on across the attractive farmland back to Sow How.

Cartmel Fell

Cartmel Fell

Windermere from Staveley Fell

As I was in good time, and felt well, I decided to add Staveley Fell to the route as an out-and-back via the forestry tracks, again not marked as a PROW.  While passing through the woods the peace was shattered by two F16s (or similar) flying low, directly over my head.  They made two more passes before leaving me alone.  The views from the top of the fell were superb in the sunshine. I had a quick pint at the Mason’s Arms then drove round to Great Langdale campsite to meet everyone else.

Home for the weekend

2nd August: Walna Scar Road – Dow Crag – Coniston Old Man – Great Carrs – Wet Side Edge – Blea Tarn: 20km

One of our fellow campers, John, offered to give us a lift to Coniston for a walk.  He had a people carrier and there were six of us, plus Amber the dog, so it worked out very nicely.  He was even happy to drive up to the Walna Scar car park (properly surfaced now) to save us some ascent.  The clouds were down but we were hoping they would lift at least for a while before the rain moved in later on in the day.

Climbing Walna Scar Road

Immy, the teenager, bounded off ahead while the rest of us plodded along more sedately.  As we turned off Walna Scar to Brown Pike, it was clear the clag was down for good.  We disappeared into it on Dow Crag and stayed there, except for a few dips along the way.  We did get a view of the crags from Goat’s Hawse.  The wind was strong too, meaning we had to choose our stopping places carefully to keep out of it.  Maybe the shorts were a bit optimistic.  There were no views from the Old Man and lots of people around, so we took a quick selfie and moved swiftly on.

Levers Water

Greenburn from Great Carrs

It was actually a pleasant walk along the ridge, which would have been nicer with some views, like the fleeting snapshot of Wetherlam we had.  Just north of Great Carrs we found some shelter which had decent views down Greenburn to accompany our second lunch.  There was a discussion about our route next.  Matt doesn’t like the descent from Red Tarn, so we looked at going via Blea Tarn.  I didn’t fancy the road walking, so suggested Wet Side Edge.  And that’s the way we went.  To save some time we aimed for the path to Hollin Crag.  On the OS map it’s a black dotted line, in real life it’s a massive patch of bracken.  We picked our way round and about it in a winding line.  Finding ourselves at the top of a rocky gully, we edged round one side before switching back to the other.  Beyond this we briefly found a path, or sheep trod, and then the terrain eased up on our approach to the River Brathay.  Thankfully the dry weather meant it was an easy crossing, as long as you avoided the slimy rocks.  All that was left was the final drag over by the tarn.  The rain that had threatened came a little more strongly, though thankfully we were sheltered some of the way by the trees, and it only really came down hard once we were in the bar of the Old Dungeon Ghyll, when it didn’t matter so much.

Not the greatest descent from Wet Side Edge

Crossing the River Brathay

Langdale Pikes the far side of Blea Tarn

3rd August: Lingmoor Fell – Elterwater – Chapel Stile – Lanty Slee’s: 12km

It’s become a tradition to do the Langdale Pub Crawl but this year the others were tweaking it a little to make it more accessible to the non-walkers, missing out Little Langdale.  I wanted a bit more of a walk so took myself up Side Pike, having never actually been to the very top, and Lingmoor Fell.  In both cases my navigation was a little wonky.  I ended up down-climbing from Side Pike, though not in any particularly sketchy way, and for some reason turned off the main ridge of Lingmoor after the summit.

Langdale Pikes from Side Pike

The accidental benefit of the latter’s boggy path was that I was treated to an amazing number of sundews.  There was a lot of butterwort too, though the flowers had died off.  I was surprised at how the bog asphodels were dying back too, having seen such a colourful abundance of them just over a week before.  On the way back down the valley, I unexpectedly bumped into one of my cousins and his family, who were staying in Elterwater and doing the pub crawl in the opposite direction.  Small world.

Insectivorous butterwort