Monthly Archives: March 2020

When You Can’t Find the Northern Lights, You Get to Spin Among the Stars

Other intersections of solar radiation and the Earth are equally beautiful. In late November, these colours change so rapidly that the change is physically observable. You are part of the turning of the Earth, and you can see it, way out there, where you are, in Space.

Iceland is a good place to get to know your place in the solar system.

 

 

Kirkjufell is Real

Tourism is an industry. Here are some industrial views of Kirkjufoss, the most-photographed mountain in Iceland.

Tour busses race past Kolgrafafjörður …

Why would you rush past such a dawn?

… to get you to it. If you go on December 24 (not in a tour bus. It will drive past), Kirkjufell might look like this at sundown:

Mind you, if you turn around, you might see other miracles:

Few do. There is no time. The 8 p.m. Aurora bus is waiting in Reykjavik, and it’s many hours and a world away. Besides, industrial images are soooooo seductive:

I don’t think this is quite how people in Grundarfjörður experience the mountain. This is certainly one way, though:

The Eastern Burbs

And this is another.

The forest walk from the campground in November.

Iceland is real.

The November view from town.

It takes time for a mountain to speak. You can’t force it.

Mountains in the Sky

Gunnar said there were ships in the sky, meaning clouds, but if you go to Iceland in the winter, you will find whole mountain ranges in the sky, that appear and disappear, created by the mountains out of the wind off the Atlantic.

They’re not exactly shadows and not exactly mirrors. They are amazingly alive. I suspect that the medium (the wind) does that. The image above is near Arnarstapi, on Snæfellsnes. The glacier is just around the corner: one of these clouds that stayed.