hiking the hverfjall crater

We hiked to the top of the Hverfjall crater, a classic tephra cone a kilometer in diameter. The pity is you're no longer allowed to hike into the crater, as others have left their mark in the ground by drawing huge graffiti in the soil, spoiling it for the rest of us.

The hike up the crater was gradual, through packed snow covered in a thin crispy coating of ice in places.

The drive to Hverfjall was as much fun (for me, at least, as I was driving) as the hike up the crater was. The track was single lane, unpaved, and covered in snow, slush and freestanding water. At one point we almost got stuck in the snow until I just powered on through.

What this hike (and others on this trip) proved tho, is that I need a wider angle lens than the 18mm (equivalent to 28mm on a 35mm camera) I currently have.

gateway to hell or geological time machine? you decide.

After our aborted attempt to see the Krafla volcano, we stopped at Hverarönd, in the shadow of Námafjall mountain, a rhyolite colored bareback peak looming over Lake Mývatn.

This place was like stepping into a time machine and seeing an earlier age of the earth. Solfataras (boiling mud pits) burbled and burped, geothermal steam vents roared like jet engines, hydrogen sulfide permeated the air.

The pity was you could see where idiots on a dare (maybe drunks, teenagers, or both) stepped beyond the ropes, onto the thin and fragile soil. Every year someone gets scalded by sinking into the hot soil. Darwin in action, I suppose.

mission accomplished

We tried making our way to Krafla, a nearby volcano. The road was near impassible and we were recommended to walk up the icy track rather than attempt to drive up the steep hill. We got to the base of the hill and decided to turn around. We did see this interestingly colored river before we left tho!

back among the lava rocks

El Malpais in New Mexico wasn't enough for us, so we went to the lava fields in Dimmuborgir, a couple of kilometers south of our guesthouse in Mývatn. The rock formations were similar to others we've seen before; the comparisons to El Malpais were obvious, but we saw a formation like Pebble Beach in California, another like Window Rock in Arizona.

The highlight of the hike is the Kirkja, or Church. It's a cave or small tunnel with large openings at each end. During summer, they perform concerts in here somehow.

This one looked (to me) like a woman dressed in medieval garb looking up in the air, but Leah thought it looked like a cat. How Rorschach.

goðafoss (gothafoss, or god's falls)

On our way to Mývatn (Midge Lake, apparently the lake is swarming with them in summer), we stopped by Goðafoss, and were pleasantly surprised and rewarded by this frozen gem. The water ran a glacial blue, and it was hard to pick path from crevasse underneath the snow. The wind blew fiercely tho, making shooting a little difficult, mostly because it was uncomfortable, but we persevered.

Between the two falls was this little grotto, partially obscured by long icicles.

Oh, the falls are named after the Viking who, upon deciding that Iceland should be Christian back in 1000, tossed his Norse idols over these falls.

around akureyri

We had gorgeous weather our first day in Iceland. Granted, it was cold, but the sun was out, a nice welcome to us.

The Icelanders sure love their art deco churches. Between this one and Hallgrímskirkja, they sure like to make a point with them.

After wandering around town, we stocked up on supplies for our days ahead at the lake, then had a tasty dinner at La Vita é Bella, an Italian restaurant.

Oh, and we got lucky and had our guest house to ourselves for the night; not even the owner was there (such are the perks of traveling off season). There was a large crowd but they checked out earlier in the day, which thrilled Lara, the owner. They were quite messy.

prius sighting

Our first day, we flew to Akureyri, the "capital of the north" of Iceland. The next largest town outside the Reykjavík metropolitan area, it has 15,000 people in it. So it surprised me on one level to see a Prius in town, especially a town with San Francisco-esque hills, only covered in ice.

Then again, with gas around $6 a gallon (on average, 110 Icelandic Kronur per liter), it's not really surprising at all.