Glacier-Hiking and Ice-Cave Exploration at Jokulsarlon

March 12, Monday:

Glacier-Hiking and Ice-Cave Exploration at Jokulsarlon

         Finally, we arrived at our penultimate day in Iceland. It promised to be the highlight of our visit as we had a very special excursion booked.

         As usual, we awoke in our room after a good night’s sleep, still sorry about the fact that overcast skies had kept the Northern Lights invisible. Iceland has a handy website (www.verdure.is) that provides forecasts of the aurora. Every day, I would scour the site looking for a glimmer of hope. But, I realized pretty soon that heavy cloud cover would persist over southern Iceland for the next few days. This obliterated any chance of our seeing the Lights again. I became increasingly thankful that we had seen something of them.

         We had our breakfast—muesli with yogurt and coffee—and chatted companionably with fellow-travelers who were also fixing their’s before we set out for the next leg of our travels further east. It was a long and very bleak drive to Jokulsarlon (the glacier lagoon) that is one of the highlights of Iceland’s natural landscapes and is a must-see site on any tourist itinerary. The land stretched out before us on a single carriage road that seems straight as an arrow, but a tad too narrow. The radio was a good companion throughout those desolate miles and we were thankful for the occasional show of sunshine as it tried valiantly to peep out from the clouds near the shoreline.

        

Arrival at and Exploration of Jokulsarlon:

         In course of time, we arrived at Jokulsarlon which was evident by the sudden human presence after what had seemed like uninhabited miles. There were tour buses and a lot of people milling around and taking pictures when we arrived at 12. 15 pm. Since our ice-caves hike and exploration was scheduled for 1. 30 pm, we had a little over an hour to explore the place ourselves, eat lunch and get ready for our big thrill. All around us, there was nothing but what seemed like a frozen wasteland. Snow or ice covered every bit of the landscape. The lagoon was partly frozen but in the middle of it floated the scenic blue-tinted icebergs that appeared like ice sculpture in the water. Surrounding the lagoon were low snow-clad mountains and the fat fingers of glaciers that lay spread-eagled over them. We strolled around the periphery of the lagoon and took many pictures. There were crystal-clear chunks of ice on the pebbled black volcanic shore that glittered like diamonds—remnants of glaciers, thousands of years old, on the last leg of their journey to the sea.  We picked up some of the icy chunks and let the pure glacial melt cool our throats.    

         Once again it was the wind and the fact that clicking pictures had left us with frozen fingers that sent us scuttling into the visitors’ center for hot chocolate and our sandwich lunch of croissants with smoked salami. The place was buzzing with a lot of tourists getting ready, like us, for their glacier excursions. Before long, we found the van of our company, Glacier Trips, parked in the lot and we approached it to board it at the start of our adventure.

Hiking on the Glacier and Exploring an Ice Cave:

         The glaciers in this part of Iceland are thousands of years old. In order to reach them, you need a heavy-duty vehicle that can withstand the bumps of a rough gravel road and the heights and depths of volcanic terrain that had been eroded into minor black sand dunes. We piled into our van together with about eight other tourists and with our guide/driver called Steffi at the wheel, we headed closer and closer to the glaciers. Although it was biting cold, our guide told us that it was, in fact, unseasonably warm and many of the glaciers had started to melt—making entry into the ice caves a rather dicey business.  Of course, the tour companies that organize such excursions monitor the health and safety of the terrain on a daily basis and will not allow visitors to enter ice caves if there is any chance of their imminent collapse.

         Steffi parked our van and instructed us on the use of hard hats (helmets) and crampons (chains with tiny metallic feet attached to them) that are fitted on to footwear to enable human beings to walk unfettered over the most slippery ice. This is because the little teeth dig into the ice and clutch at flat surfaces, preventing us from slipping and falling on our faces. Once our crampons were on (an exciting part of the excursion), we walked across the hardened ice towards the glacier. The hike took place on level ground with very little climbing. In about ten minutes, we reached the mouth of the cave and found it located at the very foot of a massive glacier that towered ahead of us.  Years of erosion and wind activity had caused volcanic ash to mingle with the snow’s whiteness. The outer surfaces, therefore, were colored a dirty ash-grey. However, once we bent our heads and entered the darkness of the ice cave, Steffi switched on his head lamp to flood the interior with light that allowed us to move around freely.

         We found ourselves in a wondrous world in a cave whose walls, ceiling and floor were made entirely of clear, transparent ice. When sunlight did manage to enter through the occasional crack, it rendered the interior blue—the blue that looks so vividly glorious in the photographs of professionals. Our cameras were unable to do justice to the interior beauty of this location. Steffi gave us a short lecture on the geological elements that produce the magnificent effect. It was all quite fascinating indeed.

         After a while, with him leading us, we went in a snaking crocodile through narrow passages walled entirely by crystal-clear ice. Natural factors pertaining to temperature and light have created uniformly wavy or convex patterns on the ceiling that were captured beautifully in our pictures. It was all part of our experience-of-a-lifetime for it is not every day that we can find ourselves in a cave made of pure ice, at the foot of a glacier that is 10,000 or more years old. When we stepped outside the cave, we found that melting water was pouring from a series of stalactites off one of the cave’s walls.  In another section of the cave, we were taken to a pathway made entirely of stalactites that hung like icicles from the ceiling but were melting fast upon the ground.  Steffi showed us where a distinct gash had appeared in the cave ceiling.  It would not be long before a huge cracking sound would be followed by the collapse of that part of the cave.  He also informed us that next year this cave, named the Anaconda Cave, will cease to exist.  We were, therefore, treading virgin ground in a natural space that would soon fade away into history. It was hard to believe that we were actually a part of this natural phenomenon of creation.     

         We had ample time to explore the cave at our leisure and to take as many pictures as we desired. After a long while, we stepped out on the glacier again and treaded our way across the frozen wilderness before us. Overall, it was a wonderful opportunity to walk on glaciers, to get really intimate with them and to understand the changing ecosystems that make these geological miracles possible.

         It was not before we piled back into our van for the return journey. We stopped briefly at another lagoon so that we could take pictures and then we were at our base where our car was parked. A quick look around the facilities, the purchase of a few light souvenirs and we were off to find our hotel—for by this time it was about 4. 30 pm and we had realized that the most challenging part of our days was trying to locate our next shelter for the night. Since we would be leaving Iceland, the next day, we had made the sensible decision of trying to find a hotel that was about an hour and a half closer on our journey to the airport. This would cut down our travel time to four hours—as opposed to the six hours it would normally have taken to reach.

Stopping at Skartafells National Park to see Svartifoss:

         Another recommendation from my friend Amy (if we could find the time) was to stop at Skartafells National Park en route to the small town known as Klaustur to our hotel. Skartafells National Park is the home of another famous waterfall, Svartifoss. Since we still had comfortable daylight to guide us to this venue, we decided to give it a shot. However, by the time we pulled into the parking lot, the sun’s rays were getting lower in the western sky. We also discovered that the Falls were a good 1.8 km (45 minute) hike each way. That hike would certainly have brought darkness upon us, had we decided to do it.  We took the decision, then, to skip it. We’d had more than our fair share of waterfalls for one trip. It’s claim to fame is that the water rushes over black basalt columns which create a striking contrast.  We contented ourselves with looking at a picture of it on a postcard at the national park’s Visitors’ Center—and then we were on our way again to find our hotel before it got completely dark.   

Our Shelter for the Night:

         We spent our last night in Iceland, traveling west, in the tiny town of Kirkjubaejarklaustur (popularly known as Klaustur) which is the only place where tourists can stock up on food, water, etc. before hitting the more remote locations eastward or westward. Luckily, our GPS picked up the address quickly and in about 90 minutes, we were skirting the main street of the little town. At the very end of it, we found our place, the Klausturhof or Klaustur Guest House which I had found on hotels.com. It was a very sweet place with an efficient and courteous receptionist who checked us in, gave us our room key and left us to our own devices.  We caught up with email, checked in for our flight the next day, and received our boarding passes by email on our phones.  We heard about another nor’easter that was scheduled to hit the East coast of the US and we were afraid it would disrupt our travel plans. Iceland is very well connected with online communication and we had easy access to wifi facilities when in our hotels.

         Though we would both have preferred to just vegetate in our hotel after an exhausting day—each day was pretty eventful and exhausting—we decided to go out in search of dinner as it was our last night in Iceland and we were actually in a town that was equipped with restaurants—actually only two, but still.

Dinner on Our Last Night at Systrakaffi:

         We drove about three minutes down the main road and found Systrakaffi, a cool restaurant that looked like it was in the middle of the city of London! It was buzzing, mainly with tourist traffic—for it is one of only two places to get a good meal anywhere between Keflavik and Hofn (which is way out east). We chose to split a salad with balsamic dressing and a fancy Mexican-style chicken pizza with red beans and corn that was more than substantial for the two of us. I enjoyed feeding upon the enthusiastic energy of other hikers (the average age of the diners was about 30 years old—which made us easily the oldest ones in the house!) as they went over their day’s adventures.  Llew and I spent time talking about what sights or experiences had been most impactful for each of us.

         A little later, we drove our car to the town’s only gas station, filled up our tank in preparation for our long drive back to the airport on the morrow, then returned to our room for showers, to pack up by consolidating our possessions into a single bag (which is all that WOW Airlines allowed for free) and then to get a good night’s rest. Before we fell asleep, we calculated the amount of time we would need to drive without stress to the airport (200 kms, i.e. four hours), one hour to cover traffic or other unexpected snarls, one hour to get to the hidden cave at Seljalandsfoss (on Amy’s recommendation), and one hour for filling gas en route, getting a bite to eat, etc. Seven hours to get to the car rental place by 12.00 noon, meant we’d have to leave our hotel by 5.00 am. Accordingly, we set out phone alarms for 4. 30 am and went to bed.    

         Little did we know what adventures would befall us upon awakening!

         Until tomorrow...goodnight.