As promised, more details and photos of my hike to the original erupting volcano at Fimmvörðuháls on 12th April. In case you´re not familiar with the long Icelandic place names, Fimmvörðuháls is only a few miles from Eyjafjallajökull, where the 2nd eruption happened on 14th April that spewed millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere and brought Europe to a standstill.
I travelled with my friends from YWAM, Steven (from Holland), Carl (from UK) and Mayke (married to Carl and from Holland). Steven hired a jeep from a company called ‘Cheap Jeep’, which sounded a bit like the 4WD equivalent to EasyJet. However, the jeep was more than adequate for the drive ahead over rough terrain, and even included a searchlight on the roof which was a lot of fun on the way home in the dark. We had decided to hike to try to catch a glimpse of the lava flows from the original volcanic eruption which began on 21st March in between 2 glaciers at a place called Fimmvörðuháls (pronounced something like Fimm-vir-thu-howls). We set off at about 9.30am from Reykjavík in the jeep on the 2 hour journey to the Þórsmörk valley (pronounced Thohrs-mirk). Þórsmórk is a valley surrounded by mountains and is a very popular hiking destination in summer, and in July thousands gather at a campsite at the end of the valley for a kind of unofficial festival. It’s apparently the warmest place in Iceland in the summer and the coldest in the winter. Once we turn off Route 1, which is the main road circling the whole of Iceland, the road soon loses its tarmac surface and can only be negotiated by a four-wheel drive vehicle. Several rivers cross the unmade road and so you have to drive across them, although they are fine by jeep, a normal car would probably come to a miserable end. Apparently they are worse in the summer, because the rivers come straight down from the glacier. With the increased heat, more water melts, swelling the rivers. We successfully negotiate the rivers, sometimes having to slow right down because of the steepness of the dips in the road where the rivers are located. We pass a beautiful glacial lake, where a tongue of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier glides dramatically down to kiss the valley. You can see this in the photos below. It’s crazy to think that 2 days after our visit, the glacial volcano would be erupting, sending huge volumes of water down this glacial tongue and flooding the very valley along which we were driving.
The drive along the valley took the best part of an hour, and as we were nearing our destination, we found ourselves before a series of deeper, rushing rivers and a road which had literally disappeared. The surface of the ground had suddenly shifted from gravel and small loose stones to larger boulders and rocks. I must admit I had doubts as to whether even the jeep could handle this, especially the rivers which were much deeper than anything we had previously driven through. But we progressed slowly, with Steven and Mayke’s cool and calm driving and, despite being shaken around a bit, we made it to the final river. This river was fast, deep and looked uncrossable. Steven jumped out to try to find the best place to cross. Fast moving white water was apparently better than the still water areas, which meant the river was deeper. We picked a spot and just drove through, hoping we wouldn´t suddenly drop into a deep pool or be carried away with the current, but our fears were unfounded. I was impressed that Cheap Jeep seemed to be unfazed by this little jaunt. After some more boulder-traversing, we found the elusive road once again and soon arrived at the Básar campsite, from where we could continue on foot up the mountain.
See photos of our drive below:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Blog about the hike itself and more photos to follow soon…
