[Bill Menke’s Journal of his and Dallas’ Iceland Trip, October 12-18, 2017]

[October 13, 2017] Dallas and I arrived at the Keflavik airport before sunrise on October 13, having left JFK on the previous evening. We grabbed some pastries and skyr (Icelandic yogurt) at the airport deli and took a shuttle bus to the Lotus car rental. (Next time we’ll walk, for it’s only a few hundred yards away). We rented a Volkswagen Golf and drove up Route 41 to Reykjavik. The day was dry and partly cloudy. An impressive blanket of fog was flowing down the flank of Esja (mountain), across Faxafloi (bay). Never having been to Iceland in the fall, I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the fall foliage in Reykjavik. Most of the trees were golden yellow and a few were orange-red. I was also surprised at the height of the trees; tallish trees seem much more common than when I visited Iceland in the mid-1990’s. These “new” trees remind me of Aspen.

We bought supplies at the Bonus supermarket on Fiskislod (street) in Reykjavik, near the port, and then drove over the Institute of Earth Science building at the university. We chatted with our host Bryndis Brandsdottir, and with other Icelandic scientists including Ingi Bjarnason, Magnus Gudmundsson and Pall Einarsson, over lunch.

In the mid-afternoon, we met up with Hannah Menke and Elinor Winter by the Esjustofa Restaurant at Mogilsa, along Route 1 at the end of Kollafjordur (fjord), which is the trailhead for the Brown Trail, which ascends up Esja (mountain) to the Varda Overlook at Thverfellshorn (peak). I have climbed this steep trail twice before (most recently in 1996); it winds through very beautiful mountainous scenery and the overlook provides a very nice view of Faxafloi (bay). Today, we had intermittent sun, occasional squalls of sleet or rain and a very strong wind. We followed the Brown Trail, which starts by a grove of tallish conifers and follows a stream up the flank of the mountain. The stream and its tributaries were flowing vigorously and, when lit by a flash of sunlight, were very beautiful against the mossy green color of the hillside. The bright yellow fall leaves of birch “trees” (actually bushes) added color.

The first four-fifths of the trail are evenly graded and only moderately steep. Dallas headed back after a half hour or so of fighting the strong headwind that screamed down the valley. Elinor, Hannah and I persevered, and when the trail turned out of the valley about halfway up, we had the wind at our back, which was much more tolerable. A little snow had accumulated on some of the boulders. I scooped some of it off and melted it in my mouth for water as we climbed. After passing a large boulder labeled “Steinn” (meaning rock), the trail became very steep as it clambered over a sequence of horizontally-bedded lava flows. It followed narrow ledges covered with slippery mud, but had a sequence chains that one could hold on to for support. After about ten minutes of climbing, we reached the summit plateau. The view of the flank of Esja, of adjacent Faxafloi (bay) and of Reykjavik on the opposite shore is very good. A large bronze disk with arrows atop a cairn points out the various sites. We stayed only a few minutes, for what had begun as intermittent sleet was now turning to steady rain.

We returned by the same route as we took up. A partial rainbow formed as we were nearing the parking lot. The roundtrip took about three hours. We then drove back to Reykjavik and checked into the Oddsson Hostel, which is on Hingbraut (the ring road) where it ends at the bay.

We drove over to Brandur Karlsson’s and Alma Osp Isrun’s apartment for dinner, where we were joined by Bryndis, Elinor and Hannah. We enjoyed a lamb dinner over lively conversation. I played a bit with Katla, Brandur’s yellow Labrador retriever. I faded early, however, for I had gotten no sleep on the plane flight and had then been awake for almost forty-eight hours. We returned to the Oddsson for the night.

[October 14, 2017] Dallas and I awoke late and well-rested. After meeting briefly with Bryndis, Elinor and Hannah, we drove out onto Reykjanes (peninsula) to climb Keilir (hill). Brandur and I climbed this hill, back in March 2005, and I remembered it as beautiful spot. It’s a conical peak in a wide lava plain about halfway between Reykjavik and Keflavik. The unpaved access road must have gotten worse since my 2005 trip; for we found its surface to be terrible! I drove eight bumpy kilometers very slowly and with much vigilance and yet considered myself lucky not to have had a rock puncture a tire.

The hiking path winds through a youngish lava flow, which while now moss-covered, is still pretty rough. Birch “bushes”, growing in sheltered depressions, are vividly yellow and orange, adding a flourish of color to the monotonous olive green of the moss. About halfway to Keilir, the trail exits the young flow, climbing across its tongue, which is oddly high. The rest of the way is through an older, more eroded lava flow, and is marked by stone cairns. We arrived at the base of Keilir in about an hour. It is a hyaloclastite hill, formed when lava, erupting beneath an Ice Aged glacier, piled twelve hundred feet up, rather than spreading out into a flow. We took the southern trail to the top, scrambling up a steep and difficult slope of loose gravel via a series of switchbacks. The final bit, on solid rock, was a bit easier. We arrived at the summit just in time to see a rainbow form below is. From out high vantage, we could the lava fields stretching out into the distance, bordered by the sea to the north and a series of hyaloclastite ridges to the south. We took the northeastern trail down. It steeper than the southern route but has more rock and less gravel. It passes close to a low hyaloclastite ridge on the north flank of Keilir, allowing us to get a good view of the stratifications in this volcanic-sedimentary rock.

When the sun occasionally poked through the clouds, its low late-afternoon sun angle it up the lava flows spectacularly. The green moss and the yellow and orange birches were brilliant! We narrowly missed getting trapped on the access road. A truck with huge balloon tires had lost a whole wheel and was partially blocking the road. We had barely enough space to squeeze by. (Though I offered to help the driver, I didn’t inquire how a wheel had come to be lost; the road had no bumps large enough to account for it). The total duration of our hike was about five hours.

I became lost driving back and we wound up taking a detour into Hafnarfjordur (town). The port area, which I had never visited before, is very picturesque. I will need to return to it sometime.

One again, we drove over to Brandur Karlsson’s and Alma Osp Isrun’s apartment, where we were joined by Bryndis, Elinor, Hannah, Pall and Magnus Palsson. After a dinner of lamb, we returned to the Oddsson for the night.

[October 15, 2017] The morning was partly sunny and pleasant. Dallas and I checked out of the Oddsson immediately after breakfast. After a quick trip to stock up at the nearby Vidir supermarket, we drove to Thingvellir (park) via Route 36. We stopped a few times along the way to view the beautiful scenery, including rivers, mountains and Thingvallavatn (lake).

Thingvellir, the site of the old Parliament, is an area along the lakeshore with scenery dominated by a series of volcanic fissures. Some of them, and especially Almannagja, are deep canyons with hiking trails at the bottom and steep cliffs on either side. The fall vegetation is this part of the country is a bit past its peak, yet still very beautiful. We arrived during a stint of sunlight and were able to view the sparkeling Oxararfoss (waterfall), where the Oxara (river) tumbles into Almannagja. We then walked a broad circle around the site, viewing a wide, marshy section of the Oxara, two smaller, flooded fissures, Flosagja and Nikulasargja, the President’s house, and the old church and its graveyard. In all, we spent about two and a half hours walking about Thingvellir.

We then drove to Laugarvatn (village), where we had arranged to meet Bryndis, who was driving up separately. Arriving early, we drove a around a bit, viewing a small river that was cascading down a large hill, close to the intersection of Route 37 with Route 337. Returning to the village, we bought a few last-minute supplies at the Samkaup strax grocery store, including a canister of propane for my camping stove. We then took a walk around the town, walking down to lakeshore. The snow-covered volcano Hekla was clearly visible on the horizon across Laugarvatn (lake), as were several other more distant snow-covered mountains.

Dallas decided to swim in the spa, Laugarvatn Fontana, but I decided to poke around a small geothermal area on the lakeshore immediately south of the spa. The ruins of an old bathhouse were steaming, as was sand on the lakeshore. Bryndis drove up a few minutes later with Katla. We played ball with the dog, letting her run around the grass beside the lakeshore, where she disturbed a group of American singers who were filming a video. Altogether, I walked around for about an hour.

We then all drove further along Route 37 to Brekkuskogur, an area with vacation houses just east of the Bruara (river). The house that Bryndis had arranged for our group to use had a sod roof, thick earthen walls and ground-source geothermal heating. Bryndis, Dallas and I then headed out to the Barnloft Restaurant at the Efstidalur II farm for dinner and to celebrate my birthday. Elinor and Hannah joined us. I had rib-eye steak and a locally-brewed beer.

We all stayed the night at the house in Brekkuskogur.

[October 16, 2017] I arose before sunrise (which is not hard when the sunrise is at 8:15AM) and stood outside as the sun rose. I could see it lighting up Hekla, in the distant south, first, and then the tops of the lower, but nearer mountains to the north. Finally, the sky gradually brightened and after what seemed to be a long while, the sun appeared over the horizon. The day promised to be a brilliantly clear. After a breakfast of pancakes at the house in Brekkuskogur, I took Katla for a walk around the neighborhood. We went down to the local stream (a tributary of the Bruara), which was sparkling in the morning light.

Dallas and I then did a hike up Bjarnafell (mountain), a table mountain located a few miles east of Brekkuskogur. Our hiking map showed a trail that started near a farm along Route 37 and which ran straight north to the summit. As it turned out, this trail did not really exist, but the general route that it specified made a fine bushwhack over mostly grassy and occasionally gravelly terrain. After climbing a steep slope up from the road, we entered a wide highland with rolling hills that gradually sloped up to what might be called the flank of the table mountain itself. All the low spots of this highland were marshes and some had small ponds. We spent an uncertain half-hour poking around until we came upon a jeep track that took us around the edge of a wetland, across a small stream, and up onto a ridge that led to the flank. We ascended the ridge mainly by walking through low, gravelly, heavily-eroded blown-out areas, for the vegetated land beside them was hummocky and difficult to traverse. The hike up the flank was tough, for it was steep, composed of gravely hyaloclastite, and cut by numerous gullies, but it was not as difficult as Keilir. After climbing up a steep layer of basalt, we came to the summit plateau, which was composed of very large angular boulders with thick and soft moss between. We ate a lunch of lamb pate at the cliff-edge, near a cairn that did not mark any easily-discernible trail. I used my MSR PocketRocket stove to heat water for tea. We relaxed and enjoyed the view to the south, which included farmlands, streams and lakes, and tall mountains (including Hekla) in the distance.

We decided not to pursue the exact peak of the summit plateau, for the terrain was difficult to traverse and the day was getting late. Instead, we began our journey home. The descent of the flank was difficult, but we took it slowly and carefully. The ridge proved rather confusing, for the blown out areas form a bit of a maze, but we could see the stream crossing in the distance and just headed towards it. Once we crossed the stream, we knew we had just to follow the jeep track. I took a short detour to climb a small hill, which afforded a nice unobstructed view of Blafell, a large table mountain to the north. My little hill sported a bird-dropping mound, a grassy features created when a bird repeatedly returns to the same spot on the hilltop (presumably because it affords a good view) and its droppings lead to the growth of grass and other vegetation that make the place an even better observing point. We followed the jeep track all the way down to the road; the intersection point was about a half mile east of the putative trailhead were we had parked. Overall, the hike took about five and a half hours.

We then returned to the house in Brekkuskogur. Elinor and Hannah told us of their attempts to mountain-bicycle another of the non-existent trails on my hiking map. Bryndis cooked us a dinner of Atlantic lobster and cod.

[October 17, 2017] Once again, I arose before sunrise and stood outside as the sun rose. The day was partly cloudy and the clouds glowed orange before the sunrise. After a breakfast of pancakes, I took Katla for another walk around the neighborhood. We went down to the stream and today I let her off-leash so she could wade in the shallow water. She did indeed frolic in it - until she caught sight of another dog and went chasing after it. I spent the next ten minutes trying to catch her. She though it a fine game! Finally, I realized that I had merely to sit down and she would realize that the game was over and come to me (which, fortunately, she did).

Dallas and I tried another destination on our hiking map, this one to Vatnsheidarvatn, a lake nestled between two table mountains a few miles to our west. We now realized that while trails might be sketchy, at best, and that while we might not actually reach our destination, we would likely find something interesting. And, indeed all this proved to be the case.

We crossed the little stream where I played with Katla in the morning via a footbridge, and then crossed the Bruara (river) by a much larger pedestrian bridge at a point just below Brurarfoss (waterfall). We were lucky to catch this beautiful waterfall in a few moments of sunlight, for the water was really sparkling. The falls share some similarity of appearance with the much larger Guldfoss, because both are cut by a large crack or fissure into which water plunges.

Beyond Brurarfoss, the trail on the map only marginally existed, and we turned back after a few hundred yards of pushing our way through bushes along the river. We then improvised, first taking the main hiking trail that follows the Bruara back south to Route 37, and then branching off on a path that seemed to lead in more or less the right direction. After a series of abortive attempts down lanes that petered out – the land itself was heavily vegetated with bushes and was impassible - we managed to follow a route pretty close to the one on our hiking map. We passed a very pretty meander of the Bruara, well upstream of the falls, which has vigorous springs on both banks. We also passed an artesian well – a vertical pipe out of which squirted a strong flow or water. Finally, we came to a tributary stream that ran up into a ridge via a narrow gorge, and which on the hiking map is labeled Fremra-Selgil. We stooped there for lunch. I set up my stove on the stones of a mid-river bar to heat water for tea, and we again had sandwiches of lamb pate. The area of the stream was very beautiful, with broad grassy meadows on the north side, edges with birch bushes in their fall colors. Although the hiking map indicated that the trail crosses these meadows, I could find no sign of it.

Vatnsheidarvatn (lake) was on the other side of the ridge – still a two-hour walk away, in my estimation. We decided to turn back. We retraced most of our way but missed a critical intersection, overshooting it by a half-mile before we realized our error. Instead of retracing our way, we decided to push on, for the jeep track we were then on was very good, believing that it would take us to Route 37 just west of the Bruara bridge (as proved to be the case). The track steadily improved in quality, though we did once have to cross a small stream by a rather rickety three-log bridge. The last section was through a farm. We had to climb over a couple of electrified livestock fences before finally reaching the highway. Bryndis, in her car with Katla, met us and we chatted and walked around a bit before driving back to Brekkuskogur. Overall, the hike took about six hours.

Ingi Bjarnason joined our group for dinner. We had a lamb and pork barbeque and talked long into the night on a broad range of topics, ranging from science to current events to family happenings.

[October 18, 2017] Ingi stayed the night in a neighboring hose and joined us for a breakfast of skyr and pandcakes. He and I spent several hours discussing Icelandic seismology, for I have been helping out on one of his projects. At about noon, Dallas and I packed up, made a picnic lunch, said goodbye to everyone and headed off. The day was grey, rainy and windy, and we do not plan any hikes.

We drove back to Keflavik via the southern route, stopping in Hveragerdi for coffee, and taking the newly-paved Route 427 along the southern coast of Reykjanes. This road is through a narrow strip of low land, full of lava flows and beach dunes, between the sea and a high cliff. The lava is from inland eruptions; it poured over the cliff in three distinct places (at least), leaving frozen lava-falls.

We had trouble gassing up the rental car in Keflavik. The touch-screens on the pumps at the fully-automated gas stations did not work. I guess that that the wind and rain was causing some kind of interference. And some pumps that did work would not accept a credit card without a pin (which most American cards, including mine, lack). Finally, the attendant at the N1 gas station on Hafnagata (street) in Keflavik helped us out by operating the pump from the register at the convenience store counter.

We returned the car and walked the few hundred yards to the terminal. The wind did not deter our pilot, for our plane took off on time. We arrived back in New York at about 7PM and were back at our house by nine.