Fimmvörðuháls og Eyjafjallajökull

Fimmvörðuháls og Eyjafjallajökull

The "Fimmvörðuháls" hike is the 28 km hike up from sea level above 1100 meters to Fimmvörðujháls (Five Cairns Pass), a thin pass between two icecaps, and then down into the Þorsmörk (Thor's Forest) in the Krossá river valley.  From the south, we begin at Skógafoss....

CC

And climb 600 meters straight up its side by a very steep staircase, and this awaits you...

CC

You remember, yes?, in 2010 some volcano somewhere in Iceland erupted and spewed enough ash into the atmosphere to shut down trans-Atlantic and European airspace for weeks.  That was Eyjafjallajökull.  A happy game Icelanders like to play is to hear útlander (outlanders) pronounce the volcano's name.  (In the US, it's more commonly known as just E15.)  On YouTube, find a collection of newscasters from about the globe making an hilarious attempt.  To be fair though, as it hadn't erupted in an age, it had long been forgotten, and when it went off, there was no available name, so it was named after the icecap on top of it.  There's an irony in the name of a volcano meaning island-mountain-glacier.

(I've debated whether I should give pronunciation help, but Icelandic orthography doesn't match its pronunciation in the least, and there are simply too many exceptions to for me to be fusst about it.  Click on the wiki-link, at least it's some help there, e.g., Eyjafjallajökull is [ˈeːɪjaˌfjatl̥aˌjœːkʏtl̥].  I have become quite good at not being able to pronounce most of these strange names .... :-)

For myself, completing the longest hike I've ever undertaken was an achievement I'm very happy with.  

nordpaul.de

I was prepared and well-dresst and had exercised enough to make the steep climbs without cramps and gasping for breath.  The climb sadly became less and less scenic.  It was foggy up on the plateau and it only got more dense as we followed up and up along the river Skógá, and its dozens of grand and noisy waterfalls were barely visible in the mist and fog, or rather, the cloud we'd hiked up into.  There's still something about the sounds of the waterfalls hidden in the mists, and the falls were uncountable.  

Where spews the asinine comments such as „at least we can't stop so much, we'd be taking so many photos“ (let's get this over with?) or in the middle of the explanation of an important geologic event, one that we're standing on! the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull!, a grumpy person collapsed on a rock „can we go now?“  Sigh.  The discovery that my waterproof boots were not was not nearly as disappointing.  

A mountain hut appeared from nowhere and we could warm up a bit and change socks and have lunch. The rain turned into freezing rain as we skidded down the ice, streakt and wavy with black ash.  Not at all a bother, as I was properly layered in non-cotton clothes and four pairs woolen socks to change into all properly kept me warm.

As we came down the ice and snow and we passt one of the two new calderas, fog-filled and easily misst, the first streak of blue appears.  We're hiking down the northern slopes and into the rain shadow.

Behind us the scarred and black and red mountain side, and it's not really apparent, the steam rising in this clip, but it's just right of the falls.

[I've discovered a postcard, the photograph is of a lavafall taken exactly where I stood shooting this video.  The dark black and red curved swatch through the middle of the picture is the bright red and orange flow of lava four years ago.  I'll post that postcard!]

Here's the postcard!  It's was incredible to find it, taken from near exactly where I took the above video of the waterall and the red/black stain on the mountainside.  Trausti showed me a coffee table book, and some of this early part of the eruption, so calm that many tourists were able to visit and get quite close.   The best photographs was two persons, knee down, on a man in heavy fireman's pants and boots, and next to him a woman in high heels.... The blue sky opens and the sun completely takes over.  Now things become near impossible to describe for you.  It's the color that is the most striking thing surrounding you in this descent into Þorsmörk.  A fluorescent green.  The mosses and grasses and herbs clinging to the sides of the mountainsides of basalt and moss-covered facets of black boulders, gravel and sand.

These last photos are favorites for many reasons: in the far distance the route down from mountain and glacier, those two black streaks down from the plateau.  It's from that plateau I took the video and the postcard taken as well.  In the foreground is part of the trail atop a very thin and very steep ridge.  I did with the feeling, I like heights. This is cool.  The name of this thin trail is Kattarhryggir or "Cat's Back".   I am so over my fear of heights.  There are a few photographs here that are bloody exciting and should get your palms sweaty. 

"Fimmvörðuháls pass - The Cat's Back" tik_tok/flickr

 

"Farið yfir Kattarhryggi" Bolli Valgarðsson/pbase