Skeiðarásandur og Skaftafelljökull

Skeiðarásandur bridges

I found that Skeiðarásandur bridges, one-land wooden ones with a metal mess bed, would "sing" as you drove over.  I'd speed up or slow down as I drove across, to get the car in tune with the bass of whatever was on the stereo.  Here, driving east, with Vatnajökull directly ahead, Skaftafelljökull to the left.

Brian McMorrow/PBase

Zairon/wikicommons

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Skaftafelljökull

It really did just lay there, melting.  I hiked up to Sjónarnípa point and scrambled down the point as far as possible where one more step would put me on the glacier after a very very long slide down.  Testing my fear of heights I suppose.  After that let-down, I hiked up further up on the trail towards Gláma point, and halfway there, I stoppt to take these photographs of Skaftafellsjökull, which, as I said, just lay there.

It firstly just appears from under a cloud. I could explain the striped bands in the ice if you'd like.  From this height, the creaking and cracking and crushing of the glacier's imperceptible movement downward was inaudible or a myth.

Here it is right in front of me!

It continues on a bit further and just gives up. By this time, the glacier ice is filthy with all the gravel and sand and ash it has accumulated over time. Melting into a small muddy lake, dammed by a moraine dotted with kettle lakes, and slowly draining and moving on through the vast Skeiðarásandur plain southward to the sea.

The trail map is pretty good actually, and shows both the Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull, the latter I'd be ice hiking and climbing on in a few days.