Iceland Adventures – Laugavegurinn Day 1 – 8/29/15 –
Landmannalaugar to Hrafntinnusker – 12k
Thought for the day every day on the Laugavegurinn: “We’re going to need a thesaurus to describe
this to the folks back home.”
The Laugavegurinn is Iceland’s most famous hiking trail, 55
kilometers of walking through an OMG landscape from one unpronounceable point to
another. Hikers do not go to Iceland in the
short summer season to get a tan, but for glimpses of a moonscape that is often
shrouded in fog. After seven days of soldiering
through drizzly rain and gray skies in the Westfjords, our merry band was
rewarded with four spectacular clear days of an unforgettable adventure of lava
fields with big boulders, small rocks, coal ash, thermal features, hot spots,
steam vents, snow fields, gentle slopes, steep climbs, scary descents, multi-colored
mountains and brilliant green moss.
Combine Death Valley’s rhyolite rocks at Zabriskie Point, North
Carolina’s Roan Highlands long views, Virginia’s green Shenandoah Valley, Yellowstone’s
thermal features, New Hampshire’s White Mountains huts, and delete all the
trees. Oh, and throw in massive waterfalls
tumbling through the colorful rock. Enjoy. Click on photos to view full screen.
Sources: Lonely Planet’s Iceland guidebook has a nice
description of the Laugavegurinn and the accommodations available. We stayed at Hrafntinnusker, Álftavatn,
Emstrur and ended at Þórsmörk. I also carried The Laugavegur Trail by Brian W. Zimmer, a useful geology guide to what we were seeing. The trail’s official website is here.
Cathy made hut reservations several months in advance. Camping is also available at each hut without
reservations, but we chose the cushier option because of the trail’s reputation
for bad weather. Much nicer to sit in a
warm, dry hut than stake out a tent in high winds and cold temperatures. Mike reserved seats on a Flybus for the
four-hour ride to Landmannalaugar, the trail’s starting point. Our adventure really started with the bus
ride.
Our comfy motor coach tour bus left from Reykjavik’s main
bus terminal headed toward the southern highlands. After two hours the bus left pavement and teeth-rattling
gravel tracks took us through the flat valley of volcanic ash edged with
looming rhyolite mountains. As we
approached the first braided river, I was dumbfounded to see there was no
bridge and the big bus drove through the water, rocking gently from side to
side on the uneven bottom. We did this
again and again. Watch it on Youtube.
Landmannalaugar (which Icelanders pronounce in a slur of “Lam-a-logger”
like you would say “Worchestershire”) is in the Fjallabak Nature
Reserve. It’s a popular
daytripper destination for geothermal springs and short hikes and a base camp
for the majority of Laugavegurinn trekkers who traditionally hike north to
south. Open from mid-June to
mid-September, the hut facilities sleep 75 people and the grounds spill over
with tents pitched helter-skelter.
From the bus we unloaded our backpacks, used the facilities,
and sat down at a picnic table to eat a quick bite and inhale deeply and a tad
nervously about what we were about to do. My main worry was finding my way if fog rolled in. Before the trip Mike had helped me upload a GPS track of the hike onto my phone, and now I checked to make sure it was still there. Now I could worry about my battery lasting for four days.
Today’s destination is Hrafntinnusker, 12
kilometers away, a hut that sleeps 52 with an outhouse (no showers) and kitchen
facilities that include propane stovetops, running cold water, pots, pans,
crockery and cutlery. Bring all your
food and carry out all your trash.
And here we go! Mike
had been to the trailhead a couple of weeks ahead of us and he confidently set
off on a white blaze trail beside a glacial river… but we didn’t see the
Laugavegurinn red blazes. No worries,
there’s more than one way to start, and we soon intersected with our
trail.
Now here we go – really!
Go ahead, look through the photos again. I couldn’t believe it either.
First look at Hrafntinnusker
Tents and outhouses
The entryway to the hut is a mud room where all boots come
off, only hut shoes allowed inside, which meant that going to the outhouse took
some planning. The staff consists of a
hut warden and a couple of other folks who check hikers in, answer questions
and try to keep the place clean.
Inside Hrafntinnusker.
Bunk beds lined both sides of the room, double on the bottom, single on
top, and it was a full house (with more bunks upstairs). Picnic style tables down the middle. Not much room to store gear. Cathy, Mike and I grabbed top bunks while Paul
and Kim shared a bottom bunk. Modest? Forget it.
We’re not in Kansas anymore and people were very open about stripping
down. If all that sounds like a
deal-breaker to you, don’t let it be.
You can change clothes inside your sleeping bag or in the outhouse, but
you quickly learn that nobody cares what your underwear looks like.
Many nationalities were represented: US, UK, Iceland, Canada, France, Czech
Republic, Germany, some solo males and females, some couples, some groups like
ours. Everyone was interested in talking
about the trail and various hiking locations around the world. And since most of us were heading in the same
direction, we would see each other again at the next hut and compare notes
about the day. [The exception was two
German couples with sour faces who did not seem inclined to friendly
conversation. They spoke only to each
other and started up a card game at 9:00 p.m. when everyone else was settling
down to snooze. At least they kept their voices low.]
Cathy in the kitchen. A huge caldron of hot water was waiting and
hikers politely maneuvered in the tight space, cooking and washing up. Cathy ventured out for a walk and climbed one
of the nearby peaks. I was content to
sit with a cup of tea to help wind down from the sensory overload.
How could tomorrow possibly be any more awesome? Well….
“Tell
me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver
