Glacier Walking 101

Despite the lack of an Aurora Borealis sighting, I had an incredible time in Iceland. Every day over there included either some unique Icelandic moment or an "I never thought I would do this in my life ever" experience. While the first and second days we were in Iceland were amazing, by far the best day was the last full day we spent in country when we headed to the south coast of the island and went for a stroll on a glacier for a couple of hours. This is definitely something I never thought I would do in my life.

Iceland is the 17th largest (of 45 if you include Monaco and Vatican City) country in Europe but it is home to more glacial areas than all the other countries in Europe combined. A lot of this obviously has to do with its position on the globe, although there are parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland that are further north. More than 10 percent of the island's total area is covered in glaciers with about 80 percent of that total concentrated in the glacier Vatnajökull on the southeast of the country. We didn't make it that far on our trip.

Our destination Friday morning was the glacier with the almost unpronounceable name of Eyjafjallajökull, specifically the spur of that glacier named Sonheimajökull, which is somehow way less of a tongue twister despite its 14 letters. If the name Eyjafjallajökull sounds familiar at all, it is because it sits on top of the volcano of the same name which erupted in April of 2010 ceasing all air travel over the north Atlantic Ocean for six days. Eyjafjallajökull is by no means the largest volcano in Iceland (the whole country is volcanic, after all); its neighbor, Katla, last blew in 1918 and is overdue for an eruption. Our guide for the day told us an eruption from Katla has the potential to halt all air traffic in the northern hemisphere for six months!

The trip to Sonheimajökull takes about two and a half hours from Reykjavik, including the last five kilometers on a snow, ice and slush covered gravel road which our 15 passenger van handled with alarming ease. I'm not sure what kind of tires that thing had on it, but our guide and driver, Atli, didn't seem to have any problems, even going up hill or down some pretty steep slopes with 90 degree bends immediately at the bottom. I spent five winters driving to work in snow every day in upstate New York and I was impressed.

Crampons on! Ready to go!

Once we reached the end of the road, a parking lot full of other vehicles smaller and larger than our van, it was time to gear up. We zipped up our jackets, pulled up hoods, donned gloves and were handed an ice axe (never really thought I'd use that term in my blog) for the walk over snow covered volcanic rock and debris to the edge of the glacier. There we stopped and learned how to strap on our crampons to our boots and were ready to ascend onto the blue ice of the glacier itself. The crampons themselves were sharp but very flimsy looking and looked almost like the old time roller skates that you tied on over your sneakers. Not super encouraging.

Glaciers, despite their solid appearance, are anything but a stationary block of ice. They are constantly flowing on a layer close to the earth that is either liquid or semi-frozen and they contain tunnels and voids that change as the glacier moves. Our guide gave us one rule to follow before we stepped onto the glacier: follow in his footsteps exactly. I wondered if this word of caution was alarmist until, as if to prove his point, he poked around the glacier with his five foot long walking stick and then managed to submerge the entire length in snow, explaining that the hole he had just found may go as deep as 20 meters (over 65 feet). Point taken. I'm following him from now on.

Our guide, Atli, demonstrating how deep the snow is in spots by burying his walking stick into the snow.

The trip to the top of the glacier was gorgeous, a nice slow pace with plenty of stops to look around at the Game of Thrones beyond the Wall landscape punctuated by a mini rock avalanche that made us glad we were not close to the cliff where the rock fell. We mostly walked on snow covered areas and stayed in a straight line but walking on the clear ice was amazing; our crampons served us just fine. We managed to find an ice tunnel to walk through and saw diagonal striations in the ice that were caused by the movement of the glacier.

The color of the ice was otherworldly. It really is noticeable as completely different from the color of regular ice. There was a frozen lake at the bottom of the glacier that looked nothing like the glacier itself.

We got to the glacier at about 2:30 p.m. so after an hour to 90 minutes on the glacier, the sun was setting and we turned around it was getting to be time to walk back down in the fading daylight / early night (yes, early night after sunset at 3:20 p.m.!!!). So after some last pictures at the top of the glacier, we started back downhill.

The view from the top.

Walking uphill on solid ice is pretty easy: gravity works with you and I tend to look at the ground and not focus on the top of the ascent since I like to see where I am placing my feet, especially if not looking where I am going means I might drop down into a snow filled ice tunnel. Turning around and walking down is a whole different experience. My first reaction when I turned and started heading down what seemed to me to be a very steep and very slippery ice slope was "how the hell did we get up here and where's the path home?"

Looking downhill allows you to see all the curves and shapes in the glacier. It is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, knowing that one false step, one slip, will send you on a long slide down over very hard surfaces into a frozen lake (in other words, pretty much sure death). I, of course, elected to walk down immediately behind our guide, meaning if one of my fellow tour takers slipped and fell, I'd be in danger of being taken out as well. I stepped very carefully and firmly on the way down, driving the spikes of my crampons with purpose until we got off the steepest slopes, which seemed sometimes too steep to hold me on a series of metal spikes.

Ultimately we all made it down off the glacier without slipping, although we did have one fall once we got back onto more solid snow covered volcanic gravel. We arrived back at the parking lot in the fading light of the day, when the low cloud covered sun made the almost monochromatic landscape totally black, white and gray. The couple of hours we spent walking up and down an ice slope, at its heart such a simple exercise, was literally one of the most exciting things I have done in recent memory. Not that we needed it to salvage the trip or anything, but that day made the whole trip worthwhile. I won't soon forget it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the company, Icelandic Mountain Guides, that led our tour. We didn't pick these guys (they were handed to us as part of our IcelandAir holiday package) but we couldn't have ended up in more capable hands. In addition to showing me an experience I won't ever forget, we soaked up a ton of knowledge from our guide, Atli, on the drive out and back. I learned more than I could possibly hope to about Iceland in less than four days and we got so much out of that tour. I would recommend anyone looking to go on a glacier walk to seek this company out. They were incredible.