Björg og Þórsmörk

Björg og Þórsmörk

The day began blue and full of yellow sun and warm and who wouldn't know the day wouldn't be more perfect as when I walkt into the South Iceland Adventure headquarters for my Þórsmörk excursion, an unbridged journey into the Forest of Thor.  I'm greeted with blue eyes and blond hair and the warmest smile of welcome and relief that I'm here, „it's so great that you're here today because you'll be bringing all the wonderful weather!“   And gods know how the weather this summer can be summed up in one word: rain.  It's the rainiest in 50 years.  Because my last excursion with the company was to Landmannalaugar, just a few days before, where we had excellent weather too, the reason why this elation, that I might be able to bring the same weather with this time.

No problem.  Just ask.

Firstly, this is Björg, our guide.  She made mention of her having sons, so they naturally are all very handsome.  If they have a great personality and are a lot of fun, she can take lots if the credit.   This is a way roundabout way of saying, Björg is very beautiful and a lot of fun to be in the company of.  She is also A+ professional, making sure we were all having a great time and as well as safe wherever we went hiking.  If you ask if she could be the guide for your excursion with siadv.is, it's not likely to happen; but what you should ask is, which excursion will she be the guide.

Next is getting there.  One of the adventures of taking a super jeep ride is that you can safely ford every river however swollen.  Many of your average 4WDs sat forlorn on the banks of the widely meandering and many-threaded Markarfljöt river that day, as there had been lots of rain in the past month.  Lots.  We kept to the south side of the valley on the F249 or Þórmerkurvegur and then followed the Krossá east into Þórsmörk proper, stopping at Langidalur.  (See the Fimmvörðuháls post.)  The warden there, painting the camping hut, told Björg that he'd not been able to do any outside work in a month.   And that's thanks to....?

Glad you're following along.

But first, on the way, a stop at Gígjökull on the north side of the Eyjafjallajökull icecap.  It's from under and through it that basically an incredible deluge of meltwater burst forth, from the melting of the icecap and glacier, when the volcano erupted with its bit of violence, to put this mildly.  The jökullhraup is that massive glacial outburst flood. So much water is created by the volcanic eruption, but the icecap is thick and heavy enough to keep the lava from erupting through, but eventually the amount of water is so great that the icecap is actually lifted up and allows the escape, which frankly is massive desolation.  One reason the Þórsmörk valley is a wide black basalt plain of sand devoid of plant life.  

 Gígjökull, site of the jökullhraup when Eyjafjallajökull erupted, 2010.

After a picnic lunch in the sun on the green at Langidalur, we hiked up Valahnúksból mountain for a magnificent view of the entire valley, actually two, on the south side the Krossá, the north the Markarfljót, the Krossá joining it to form that challenging river to get into and back from the valley.

Krossá River and Mýrdalsjökull icecap 

Krossá

There are so many more photographs to post.

I'd spend a lifetime in cafés doing so.  Sigh.

The next hike was the Fimmvörðuháls trail from its northern Básar terminus, which was like walking with an old friend.  It was the same trail leading north and down from the Eyjafjallajökull hike I'd been on just two days before.  As we hike due south, up and into the Hvannágil valley along the eastern side, OR we walked due south on a nearby trail just a bit east, and up and into the Skáragil valley following its stream.  I can't tell from the maps (I think it the latter).  Either way, I was on the same trail as before, and on the trail along I recognized particular birches, fungi, flowers, rockfalls, florescent green mosses, the treacherously thin trails with steep death-defying rockfalls to slide down and never ever been found again, not alive anyway.  We to that thin ridge I described before, near vertical slopes either side of a not a meter wide path, the one I could think to myself, I like heights.  I'm so over being afraid of heights and so happy about it that I cannot stop letting you know whenever I have that opportunity.

Peter Wemmert/kameratrollet.se

 Björg made two special trips into the cliffs on the south side of the valley.  Merkurker is a hidden place full of magic.  Magic is a word I'll be using a lot right now.  We drive due east and unbridge a ford over the Selá (Seal River, making nonsense), then into the gray barren gravel wash of the Suaðá. We hike up and over a ridge into a green lush valley.  While there, two challenging hikers took the fun route down the stream into a cleft in the mountain or a tunnel and then back out downstream, just 10 meters more or less, but deep and fast running and of course ice cold!  The brave couple at the end of the tunnel officially blest by the magic of the place.  

Me

Nauthúsagil cannot be described in words and cannot be captured in photographs.  But it is easily the most magical place on earth.  Just east of Merkurker.  We walkt up into the canyon 20 plus meters high but wide only several meters or less, curving right and left, the walls are moss and ferns and dripping and misting, we're up and along and over the rocky stream, balancing on rocks, stepping to the next rock hopping and hoping, pulling yourself up with a knotted rope like rock climbers, holding onto a chain bolted into the rock face, holding on for dear life (exaggeration) and shuffling side to side along, and finally after lots of seriously dangerous situations, a beautiful beautiful waterfall and deep blue ice water pool.

If I'd taken one step further back, not only would I've
been showered but I'd fallen into a very deep hole.  
Scared Björg!  The look on her face scared me!  I'm so not careful.


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Lastly, there are advantages to rainiest seasons, you just have to take another point of view.  The trees that Icelanders are planting, to reforest the island, they've never had a better growing season.  Excursions in jeeps that can cross swollen rivers with ease or showing off how easy it is or with difficulty but with gravitas so that the tourists aren't freakt out:  it's all the same to the passenger: WICKED FUN.