Hidden Gems

This is going to be a long post, but I promise you’ll enjoy it. We woke up earlier today to go to Dyrhólaey, one of the rock formations by the beach we had seen a couple of days ago. We wanted to see it more closely before going on our ice hike. I had the day very well planned in my head and I had the times right. Or so I thought. We first stopped to get gas and the now customary free coffee and sandwich for the day. We enjoyed the drive like always. We had decided to stop on the way at one of the waterfalls we hadn’t seen from up close and then we made it to Dyrhólaey.

We got there, took our sandwiches with us and sat down to contemplate the breathtaking view. The day was beautiful! It was even warm; we could have just worn a t-shirt, except for the fact that we were going to be walking on ice after that.  We took pictures and headed to the glacier at a time that I thought was good. I even thought we were going to be getting there earlier than requested. The ticket said to be there 15 minutes before starting the walk, and we were going to be there 30 minutes before.

Except that, at some point my mind decided that the walk started at 2:30pm, and not at 2:00pm, which was actual time. It must have been the magic of the country, the fact that I was very relaxed and happy, or all of that together. I realized my mistake when we were pulling into the parking lot and I saw a group of people starting a walk. My heart stopped. How did I do this? I parked, jumped out of the car while my friend was pulling up the ticket on her phone and we ran to a couple of guides next to hiking company’s van. I was so worried that I don't even know if I made any sense when I tried to explain to the guide what had happened. As calm as he could be, he looked at the ticket and said, “Yes, this is us.” So I quickly asked him if he could wait for us to grab our things and to run to the bathroom (I always have to go at the worst moments). He did wait for us. The group was pretty much ready to leave, so one of the guides started the walk with them and the other one stayed with us to adjust our crampons. I haven’t felt relieved like that in a very long time. Had I missed that hike, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.

When we purchased the tickets, we received an email saying that due to a “change in conditions” there was a 15-minute walk from the parking lot to the glacier. I thought that was interesting, but didn’t think much of it. When we started the walk the guide explained. In the last two years, the glacier melted a great deal. It is probably hard to appreciate that in the picture, but the glacier hikes used to start right where the parking lot is, and now there is a 15-minute walk on dirt to be able to start the hike.

I have worked in conferences where the main topic is climate change. I have learned a lot about what is happening to our beautiful world right from the experts. However, seeing it and understanding it is a very different feeling. I felt sad and worried. I immediately asked the guide if these walks have a negative effect on the glacier, and he said no. One might think that he said that because guiding hikes is what he does for a living, but his answer made sense. He said that the ashes from the volcanoes and the shifting temperatures are what have a negative impact on it.

I absolutely loved every single thing we did in Iceland, but this hike was the best of it all. When we arrived at the actual glacier, we caught up with the rest of the group. The guides explained how to put our crampons on and then one of them checked to see if we had done it right. They told us how to walk with them and gave us safety instructions.

At this time of the year, the glacier is pretty much covered by volcanic ash. One of the guides told us that in the winter, the ice is so clear that you can see pretty deep into the glacier. He gave us a distance, but I can’t remember what it was. He said that there are people who are afraid of heights and don’t really like that. I would have loved to see the ice like that. Maybe on my next trip. The hike lasted about three hours. It was a good workout, but nothing extreme, and it was an amazing learning experience. The guides stopped several times to explain how the ice forms (it takes 10 meters of compact snow to form 1 cm of glacial ice). They showed us the different kinds of ash from the volcanoes: the old kinds and the newer ones. One of old ones (from an explosion back in 1918) is so fine that it forms a paste with the water of the glacier. He said that it is full of minerals and it is a good insulator. The newest one (from an explosion back in 2010) is basically small rock. He even showed us another very old one, which was lighter in color and could be used as a facemask.

We walked down to a place where the ice looked as blue as you can imagine, and they explained why the ice has different colors: oxygen and sunlight, basically. The bluer the ice is, the harder it is. We also drank water from the glacier explorer style. The only problem is that I needed help to get back up both times (between the lack of sleep in general and the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing because I couldn’t get back up, one of the guides had to help me). And I don’t have the words to describe the taste and freshness of that water. We also saw other groups ice climbing and our guides explained how it worked. At some point they let us try on a very small wall in one opening of the glacier that we walked into.

The company that we went on this hike with is Mountain Icelandic Guides. They have all kinds of expeditions that I definitely want to do one day. They are experts on mountains and glaciers. They keep their groups small and they are wonderful. They even do expeditions in Greenland…That left me thinking. I just added Greenland to my list of places I want to visit.

I was absolutely fascinated by the whole experience, taking it all in for the full three hours. We met two guys and a gal from New York who were very nice. They told us about a secret waterfall next to the big waterfall five minutes away from the glacier.

After the hike, we finished our sandwiches and headed to the hidden waterfall. Luckily, my friend found information online on how to find it, and when we parked the car, a couple was coming back from it to confirm that we needed to jump over a fence to get to it. The fact that you have a very popular big waterfall that everybody goes to right next to a hidden one that few people know about didn’t cease to amaze me. This seems to be the case at almost all of the popular waterfalls. A lot of the information I obtained for my trip came from blogs. I don’t have a clue how people find the hidden waterfalls, but they do, and the information gets passed by word of mouth.

Iceland is an island, a pretty big one, but an island nonetheless. It has the most wonderful landscapes I have ever seen. It has it all. Sometimes you even feel like you are walking into a Lord of the Rings set. But more and more people are visiting it, and some places are already being transformed into accessible, comfortable touristic sites. I honestly don’t like that at all. It takes the charm away from it. I hope most of the waterfalls and amazing places we saw stay the way they are. We humans tend to turn beautiful natural wonders into ugly man-built sites to see them. There really is no need for that. I hope we learn to respect nature and leave it alone.