It’s all easy enough until the last uphill jag.
On the right there. For the show-offs.
Hiking in Iceland: Slow, Steady and Run Real Fast
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Tag Archives: hiking
An Old Gate Post Without A Farm
If you explore old farm sites in remote areas in Iceland, you will find boulders, set at the boundary of a tun, a house field manured from a barn. This, in Icelandic culture, is a yard, or garden. A pretty special place. With a boulder.
These boulders are all chosen. Many have animal shapes. Many of those are ravens. Some are dwarf stones. Here on the old road up to Vatnjökull from the Fljótsdalur, it’s a raven, which is fitting, because when you walk up the trail, the ravens are watching the whole time, to see if you’re going to tumble down into the gorge and become lunch. it’s best to honour wise creatures like that.
What Trolls are Smoking in the West Fjords
Well, now we know what happened to all the hiking trail markers in Iceland.
Pathfinding in Iceland
If you’re going to follow the trail …
… the sheep won’t help you.
It’s best to follow the stakes set out by the Icelandic government, to keep things safe. You’ll have to stomp around quite a bit to find them.
It’s always a happy moment to spot one.
Even if you’re at the bottom of the trail at that point! It’s just a little game Iceland plays with you. You might as well play along.
Puffin Guardians at Raudanes
The puffins at Rauðanes…
…are well-guarded. Note the troll, whose hair they live in, and his peek-a-boo stone seal.
Plus, a whole guard team on shore. Here’s one at work.
All this help allows puffins to build a pretty lovely set of penthouses in peace.
Just respect the management’s rules, that’s all, and yield at trail intersections!
How to Cross a Stream the Icelandic Way
Hang on!
Icelandic Birds: a Complex Ecosystem
Sure, a ptarmigan on the Selá, Christmas dinner, easy to identify.
And an elf bird in its nest in the hraun, not Christmas dinner, easy enough.
But a cairn in the Villingadalur, that looks like an elvish bird, tricky.
Yet, it’s by it that you find your way through elf country to Christmas dinner.
Two Seasons on the Strutsfoss Track
July is a beautiful time to turn over your shoulder when hiking to Strutsfoss.
So is April.
And then you turn around…
… and keep going.
Ptarmigan is Watching You
On the Lower Stapavik Trail, the ptarmigan like to hang out right on the trail edge, right on the edge of the river, among the logs, where the sun gets warm and life is good.
And then they burst up in front of you, from like 20 cm away, and are gone. The trick to disappearing is to remain absolutely still. It didn’t quite work for the one above, which tried to sneak between the cover of two rocks and wound up freezing on the shore grass beside the trail. The one below got it right, though. Safe among the lava lumps.
It’s the joyful hoped-for unexpectedness of the encounters that is so alluring. Like most things in Iceland, “you just never know.”
We Are Dettifoss
Water that enters a fall zone and flows down through air to the centre of the Earth, before being stopped by stone, first attempts to find its original level by climbing back, before the Earth draws it away. Have a look.
Dettifoss
People come from around the world to experience this power. What at first appears to make one small and insignificant actually makes one large because as humans we live in what we see. We are the waterfall. Keeping a little distance is safe, though.
A Farm in Iceland 
