Our big activity of the day was our glacier walk. So we drove to Sólheimajökull, which is what they call the "tongue" of the major ice cap called Mýrdalsjökull. They call it a tongue because it's the part of the glacier that is being pushed down in between the mountains. Each of the major glaciers in Iceland have several such tongues. This glacier is pretty unique (and glaciers in Iceland) because it covers an active volcano named Katla, which is overdue for an eruption! And because of it's proximity to the volcano the glacier has a lot of black volcanic ash in places. I don't think there are many places where you can hike on a glacier covering an active volcano!
We did our tour through Arcanum Glacier Tours. Our guide's name was Javier and he was great. There was only one other couple in our group which was really nice since we saw much larger groups walking around the glacier. The weather also shaped up for us; it didn't rain on us (except for 2 min in the very beginning) and the wind wasn't really blowing either. Javier told us that it rains there like 300 days a year so we got really lucky.
The tour was great! We started by putting on our safety equipment- harnesses, helmets, and crampons (spikes on our shoes). Then we walked up to the glacier and up we went! At first I was a bit hesitant walking on the ice since I tend to fall when walking on normal, horizontal ground. But it wasn't too bad once I got the hang of it. It was kinda fun stomping around in order to get the spikes planted each step.
We learned so much about glaciers while on our tour. There are so many crevices and holes formed by running meltwater or movements of the glacier (since it is sliding down a mountain). There were two tunnels that were big enough to climb through and one included a huge hole downwards; it looked like it would be a really fun waterslide. There were also little waterfalls and curvy streams on the glacier where the water would run. There were also varying sizes of black pyramids on the glacier. We learned this is caused by volcano ash collecting in the holes and crevices, which then insulates the ice underneath and therefore the surrounding ice melts faster than the ice protected by the ash so eventually the surface melts away creating the pyramids. It's also amazing how fast the ice is melting and how quickly the surface of the glacier changes. Our guide said that the surface had melted down about 5 ft in the last month!
It was so beautiful on the glacier with the tops of the mountains covered in green surrounding us. That was one of the perks of seeing the glacier during the summer. Also being able to see lots of the different geography of the ice surface since in the winter it's usually all covered up by snow. But now I feel like we need to come back and experience it in the winter as well since it sounds like it would be a totally different experience! Then everything is snow covered and the ice is clear blue since it's more dense.
Here are some pictures:
Ready to walk on glaciers!
The water cutting it's way down the ice:
Matt doing some glacier climbing:
We had such a great time! I wasn't sure what to expect but honestly it was a lot more fun that I thought it would be. It helped that Javier was so knowledgeable and friendly. Highly recommend it and Arcanum Glacier Tours! They also rented boots to us which was very helpful since we only had tennis shoes. Boots are necessary when walking/climbing on glaciers! The weather was nice today so we didn't have to get too bundled up. I was probably overdressed with long underwear under my jeans and 4 (small) layers on top.
After a quick lunch we went to Sólheimasandur which is known as plane crash beach. The plane crashed in 1973 when a US Navy plane ran out of fuel and crash landed. Luckily everyone survived! It was about a 2-hour walk round trip but it was pretty cool to see. We were able to climb around and inside the plane to take all kinds of pictures.
Then we went back to Seljalandsfoss waterfall (where we went yesterday) and this time we were prepared to get wet and go behind the falls. We definitely got wet but it was fun. We also found out from our glacier guide that there was another waterfall just 5 minutes away, Gljúfrafoss, and it's mostly hidden in a cave so we went to check that out as well. It was really pretty but difficult to see much of it.
View from near the back of the waterfall:
That was pretty much our day! We made it back to our hostel and ate dinner. Then we went for a walk around the farm with another guest here and used his drone to check around the surrounding area. That was pretty fun.
Arcanum sponsored our glacier tour but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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