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.

The House Always Wins

OK, so let's get this out there right away: I didn't see the Aurora Borealis while I was in Iceland this past week. My $2,000 gamble didn't pay off. I'll have to try again some other time. And no doubt I will someday, whether it be in Iceland or somewhere else. I'll get to see the Northern Lights eventually, even if I have to station myself somewhere for a month or so and do nothing else but look at the sky every evening. But that's a long way away in all likelihood.

I usually do a fairly good job of setting my expectations at a realistic level for something like finding the Northern Lights where there are so many variables in play which are totally out of my control: the right solar conditions, the right temperature and clear skies are definitely conditions which I cannot even influence in any way. And so when I boarded my flight at Dulles Airport Tuesday night I was prepared for failure and the disappointment that would bring. I knew picking such a short window of time meant everything would have to fall into place perfectly.

My itinerary for this trip included only a three night stay and I knew the first night was probably a loss because I would surely just pass out early that day due to the lack of sleep on the overnight flight Tuesday evening. But Wednesday's activities brought a glimmer of hope. I took a whale watching trip that day just after noon (or since we didn't see any whales, it was basically just a boat trip). While looking hopelessly at the Atlantic Ocean for anything resembling a whale, we met Steve from the Isle of Sheppey in England and his wife, Anna, from Belarus (by Steve's own admission a total eastern European mail order bride scenario but it worked out - they just celebrated their tenth anniversary).

Steve and Anna had seen the Aurora Borealis two nights before just outside of Reykjavik. I had a chance between not seeing whales to check out the pictures Steve had taken and hope that I would have a chance to capture some similar images. The Northern Lights usually appear in pictures as mostly green and yellow waves of particles across the sky and Steve's pictures looked substantially similar to those posted on Northern Lights tour websites. But his account of seeing the Lights in person differed from his photographs. While his pictures showed a lot of green in the sky, he described only white lights, explaining that he was told to take photographs using an eight second exposure on his camera which would produce the signature colors of the Lights. I never really thought those photographs were taken as anything more than a single quick shutter click, but I'll surely remember Steve's story if I ever do get to experience it myself. I went to bed that night cautiously optimistic. I kept the curtains in my room open just in case the sky lit up in the night (it didn't).

Special Tours: Not so special last Thursday night.

The first thing I did the next morning when I got up was to check the Aurora Forecast on the Icelandic Meteorological Office's webpage. While not ideal, the forecast showed the possibility of some clear skies later that evening just west of Reykjavik, meaning over the ocean. Fortunately, I had scheduled a night Northern Lights by Boat tour that night as part of my vacation package so maybe there would be some hope. I set out on a most of the day bus tour to Iceland's Golden Circle with my fingers crossed that I'd get a break that night.

The Golden Circle is composed of three natural sites: Lake Thingvellir, a site of historical and geological importance to the Icelanders; Gullfoss, a 100 foot high waterfall; and Geysir, one of the first geysers ever to be discovered (and the namesake for all those that followed). The scenery was incredible but the tour got back a little late, so we took a cab downtown to get some dinner in plenty of time to catch our boat. Excitedly, we asked the cab driver if she thought we would see the Northern Lights on our tour. The answer was a flat "no, it's not cold enough." And if that didn't dash my hopes enough, they were killed when we got to the very imaginatively named "Special Tours" company office and found out the tour had been cancelled due to windy conditions. Better safe than sorry I guess but there went one of my two chances.

Gazing hopelessly up at the Iceland sky Friday night.

So then it was down to Friday, my last day in Iceland and my last shot at the Aurora Borealis. Friday gave me the best shot at a spectacular sighting because I planned to get out of Reykjavik and away from the city's light pollution. But after a long drive out of town, a few hours strolling around a glacier and a quick traditional Icelandic meal, our tour guides declared the sky too cloudy and there was no way would see the Lights that night. Strike three. I was out. No Northern Lights. Not on this trip.

I'm glad I went to Iceland, even if the primary reason for me going never panned out. The country is beautiful and I'm glad my introduction to the place occurred in mid-December. I really did keep the hotel room curtains open all three nights I was in country in hopes that I would wake up at some point in the night to a fantastic light show. It never happened and my disappointment was honestly almost palpable. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am committed to try again. It may not be soon and it may not be in Iceland but I'll be back to look up at the night sky again someday.

Iceland's night sky, Friday December 13, 2013. Yes, this is a real photograph.

The $2,000 Gamble

At a little after 7:30 p.m. tomorrow (weather permitting), a plane that I will be on will be leaving Dulles Airport and heading north. Way north. Further than I have even been by about two full degrees of latitude. The furthest north I have ventured in my life prior to my trip tomorrow was in the year 2000, when I traveled by car to Jyväskylä, Finland on my summer of '00 Alvar Aalto pilgrimage. When I land in Reykjavik, Iceland Wednesday morning, I'll be closer to the north pole than I have ever been before.

So I know what you are thinking: it's late fall (almost winter in fact) about two weeks before Christmas and you are heading somewhere cold? Yep, that's right. I know most people at this time of year are thinking somewhere in the Caribbean or Florida. Not me. I'm going to a country where the temperatures at this time of year hover right around 32 degrees fahrenheit pretty much continuously and where there are fewer than five hours of light in the day. Sounds fun, right? I'm really looking forward to it. This has in many ways been a long time coming.

This short trip is going to be packed: a little over three days with four organized tours in and around the Reykjavik area. Before this week is over, I'll have been on two boats; walked on a glacier; toured national parks; and hopefully will understand a lot more about a country that as a kid, I always wanted to visit for some reason. I always used to write stories when I was in school in England that had characters living in Iceland.

My main hope on this trip, however, is that I will get to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, a natural light display caused near the polar regions of the Earth by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. The phenomenon causes bands of colored light to illuminate the sky and is especially visible on cold clear nights. It is considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and it is without a doubt the singular inspiration for this quick trip north. I'm hoping for clear skies all week and temperatures in the high 20s.

I think we got a sweet deal on this trip. I managed to pick a packaged vacation from IcelandAir with our non-stop flight, three nights' hotel and four tours (including some meals) for about 38 cents less than $1,000. Then somehow, someway, I managed to convince myself I needed new boots, socks, base layers, fleece outer layers, gloves, coat, a storm shell (pants and coat) and hat (Wizards hat, of course) which set me back almost as much as the trip itself. Now it's less of a sweet deal but it's not like I will never use the clothing I have bought ever again. I'm hoping the gamble is worth it. The weather forecast predicts cloudy skies every day so I'm not super optimistic. If I manage to see the Aurora Borealis at all, I'll consider it money well spent. And if I don't, I'm sure I will have a great time anyway. I'm just hoping for a payoff worth more than $2,000.