A land of Ice and Fire.

Mountains, waterfalls, hot springs, geysers, glaciers, volcanoes, caves, ice lagoons... Nature does not seem to scrimp on any wonder in this beautiful country. We spent 10 days in Iceland, staying in Reykjavik and traveling around the southern part of the country, trying to sample a little bit of everything.

All the photos are here:

Volcano hike

Ice lagoon

Vatnajökull glacier

Thingvellir National Park

Gulfoss

Geysir

Reykjavik and around

Eyjafjallajökull volcano hike:

We hiked up to the top of the notorious volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted in 2010 causing weeks of chaos to all air traffic across the Atlantic.Volcanic ash is still strewn for many hundreds of kilometers to the south and east. We actually walked all the way to the still-warm crater, where the lava is still smoldering from the 2010 eruption, and steam is coming out of vents in the ground. We climbed around 1100 meters to reach this point, walking on a mountain pass called Fimmvörðuháls in between 2 glaciers, and from there, came downhill for the next 6 hours through the steepest, craziest slopes that even goats would think twice about. Thank god for the few chains and ropes on our way, but nevertheless, I am amazed that we're still alive to tell the story :)

Vatnajökull - Europe's largest glacier (!!):

We climbed a section of Vatnajökull, using special crampons on our shoes and ice axes to pierce through the ice. We inspected some beautiful ice tunnels and caves carved by water, and felt quite overwhelmed knowing that we were walking on ice that was formed thousands and thousands of years ago (the last ice age even!). Apparently (according to our guide), nearly a 100 meters thick snow would have to be compressed to less than 1 cm thickness to form the kind of ice we were on. And imagine the force needed to accomplish that compression - there had to be that much snow over it to weigh it down as much. And this ice was about 200 meters thick on average, even at the edge of the glacier where we were walking (some above and a lot below the ground). On the way to this ice, we were walking on brown soil like material, but on going closer we realized that this was quite shaky ground since there was ice beneath it! And you heard parts breaking away and falling down as you were walking! It was surreal, to say the least.

Jökulsárlón ice lagoon:

We went boating in the ice lagoon which was just spectacular. Huge icebergs of different colors and shapes just floating about in a blue lagoon. Ice with different stories to tell. It was really like living in a dream. The lagoon is a mix of fresh water from the melting glaciers and sea water, which prevents it from freezing even in winter. But apparently, the James bond folks didn't like that when they came to inspect the site for shooting 'Die another day'. They wanted the lagoon completely frozen for the exciting car chase sequence in the movie. So they spent a month there, building a new embankment to prevent the sea water from entering the lagoon, waited for a few weeks until  the lagoon completely froze, and did their shooting. And finally, this part in the movie which was eagerly anticipated by the Icelanders for all the trouble they had been put through, lasted 30 seconds. 30 bloody seconds!

Gulfoss and Geysir:

This day's visit was to Gulfoss (the golden fall), and a geyser called Strokkur which went off magnificently every 5 minutes or so to a height of about 25-30 metres! This Strokkur was located right by the side of the great 'geysir', the original phenomenon that lent this Icelandic word to describing all other geysers in the world. 

Thingvellir national park:

This is a Unesco world heritage sight, as it was the seat of the first Icelandic parliament called alÞingi established in the year 930 when the first settlers came to Iceland. But for me, the fascinating thing about this place is that this is where the Eurasian and American continental plates meet. There are many rifts and a valley filled with a lake here, on one side of which is technically America and the other side Europe. And as these two continental plates are pulling further and further apart, this valley is sinking every year by a few centimeters! We were technically standing on newly forming, uncharted, no man's land, when we were there.

But wait. Depending on how screwed up you are, the coolest thing of the day was yet to happen to us. We were quite bored with our big tour group, and just wandered off by ourselves when everyone else was crowding up at a cafe. What did we meet? We ran into a 'game of thrones' shooting set!!! We heard that they were filming at several different locations in Iceland this summer. We didn't meet any Lannisters or Starks since the area was obviously cordoned off, but apparently, Arya and the Hound were in the set that day. We came back home and checked that it was real. Here are photos taken in the spot on the same day we were there: http://winteriscoming.net/2013/07/day-19-photos-from-the-thingvellir-shoot/ 

and a video interview with Chris Newman: http://www.visir.is/section/MEDIA99&fileid=CLP19996

Lava caves:

Just a little west of Reykjavik, we went caving underground, into a lava cave, and had a small adventure there since we (along with our guide) got lost and suddenly had to crawl out (and round and round eventually) much more seriously than on our way in. We somehow managed to come out after an hour of wondering whether a new volcano had altered the cave after we went in. It's not unusual to expect that in Iceland when they tell you that they have 130 volcanoes and some kind of eruption happens every second or third year.

Reykjavik area:

And last but not the least, Reykjavik is a charming little city. Cozy cafes, cute streets lined with little shops and crazy colored roofs, a beautiful harbor, the lush green gardens around the pond Tjornin and a really tall and pretty church.

We spent the rainy days playing chess in cafes and reading the famous Icelandic sagas at the local bookstore. It's a strange feeling to just get out a few kilometers from Reykjavik, and see the road winding through acres and acres of just lava fields. Solid lava where some moss is growing in patches here and there. Less than 10% of all of iceland is covered in trees, and It's no wonder that this is described as a lunar landscape, where even a patch of green grass after the desolateness of lava seems very fertile. We saw some geothermal power stations, and apparently all the hot water in Iceland is just directly out of the hot springs. Water is not heated using any energy, and in fact this hot water is what is used to heat up the homes too.

We also went out to the sea one day to do some bird and whale watching. We saw a lot of arctic terns, northern gannets and the most special thing of all - puffins. We saw lots and lots of shy-free, friendly dolphins but no luck with the whales.

All in all, it was just spectacular scenery, and we couldn't get enough of it.

Kungsleden - Abisko-Nikkaluokta - June 2013

So this summer of 2013, we set out to the north of sweden to do a 7 day hiking trip through the arctic wilderness. We have actually never stayed out in the wild, on foot, out of civilization, without electricity/internet/running water (in that order) etc etc for this long a time ever before! 

We walked on a trail known as the Kungsleden (swedish word that means the King's way, when translated). We started at Abisko and ended at Nikkaluokta, a distance of a little more than 100 km (I think we walked about 120 km in all). Here is a map of our journey: STF trail map Kungsleden Abisko 

All the pictures are here:

Photos at the train station

From Abisko

Day 1: Abisko to Abiskojaure

Day 2: Abiskojaure to Alesjaure

Day 3: Alesjaure to Tjäktja

Day 4: Tjäktja to Sälka

Day 5: Sälka to Singi

Day 6: Singi to Kebnekaise

Day 7: Kebnekaise to Nikkaluokta

We stayed at STF huts all along the way, which meant we didn't need to carry tents/sleeping bags. It also meant that we didn't need to carry cooking utensils or food for all 7-8 days, since there were some supplies at some of the STF huts along the way. But being vegetarian, and kind of finicky about food, I insisted we should carry enough and more supplies of food for the whole way. These huts were super nice, almost bordering on cozy, given where they were located and the wilderness through which we traveled everyday. Here is a description of our trip - the pictures tell the story that's too long for words.

We left home on the midsummer day, and took a train from Uppsala to Abisko, it took us about 16 hours to get there. Abisko is a small village located in northern sweden (about 300 km north of the arctic circle), and to me this was the top of the world! It is the starting (or ending) point of Kungsleden, and symbolically located just south of a big lake called the Torneträsk. The lake makes one feel like it's the end of the world, and I was sure this was the remains of some ancient glacier. (Of course, this is not the end of the world, we were just at 68 degrees N latitude, and had a long way to go until land ended). We spent the night there, and started our hike the next morning.

Day1: Abisko to Abiskojaure (about 14 km) (Day 1 pictures)

This first day was the easiest of all the days, it was like taking a stroll through a park. Well, almost. We were walking through marshy, swampy, rainy forests, and along the Abisko river almost all the way, and this area was the Abisko national park. On this day, we realized that the Kungsleden trail marking was going to be really easy to follow, we made friends with some people who had left on the same day, and were doing more or less the same thing we were planning to do. We also realized that there was a walking trail and skiing trail on kungsleden, and the big red crosses which we originally thought was what we should follow often led to the middle of some crazy rocks or ended in water. (apparently, these big red crosses were the ski trail). We saw a LOT of mosquitoes, which were bigger than any I have ever seen before in my life (that is a BIG thing, coming from an someone who has braved many a south indian summer. or winter, it does not matter.) We also saw about a million (at least a million!) tiny, yellow-green worms. They were everywhere, on the rocks and stones, on the wet ground, on the trees, leaves, hanging down from branches, and if we stopped anywhere for more than a minute, in our shoes and bags as well. So they helped us keep a good pace, and we later learnt that these were actually caterpillars that were killing the forest, because of their unchecked population (the swedish winter temperature has to apparently be below -30C for 3 successive days to kill the eggs, because each of these caterpillars would become a butterfly in autumn that would then lay about a 100 eggs!) This was the first time I had heard a butterfly being associated with something so destructive. 

We left at about 10.30 in the morning, and we had reached Abiskojaure at about 16.00. Once we had passed the wormy place, we took lots of breaks and enjoyed the sunshine (never sure how long it would last), and so this was at a very easy pace.

Day 2: Abiskojaure to Alesjaure (Day 2 pictures)

This was the longest, hardest day of the whole trip. It was about 24 km to walk, and we set off at about 8 AM. We reached about 10 hours later. The first section was a good climb on very stony sections, and then we walked on flatland for a long long time (this was the best section of the walk, since we were blanketed by distant snow-covered mountains, we had the sun on our faces and we were walking along a river). No more yellow worms or marshy land, there were many a good rock to sit on and enjoy the sereneness of where we were, and we did that quite often. And then, Shyam twisted his ankle pretty badly on a stone. After this, the going was much much slower, and he did remarkably well, given how much pain he was in, but still, every km now felt like a distant milestone. At this point, we also encountered our first river crossing. (without a bridge). We did several more of these over the next days and were quite used to them by the end of the trip, but this was our first, and also one of the biggest crossings. Water was flowing quite fast and you had to place your feet on the right stones which were perched rather precariously under the water. We didn't have any water shoes and we didn't want to walk barefoot, for fear of sharp stones that could hurt our feet, and shyam's ankle was rather bad. And after this, the ground was so swampy and boggy that it was a nightmare crossing this area. We finally came to a sign that said the Alesjaure huts were just 3 km away. 3 km! We were very very pleased, but that day was a lesson on how different 3 km is, on a stony patch of ups and downs where you had to choose carefully where to put every foot. We finally made it, and taped up shyam's swollen ankle, spent a good long time in the sauna (yes, sauna!), ate well and rested. 

Day 3: Alesjaure to Tjäktja (Day 3 pictures)

Only some 14 km to walk today, and shyam was doing much better. We had the choice of going straight to Sälka today, without staying in Tjäktja for the night - a distance of almost 25 km but it would have meant that we had an extra day which we could use to go up Kebnekaise (this is the highest mountain in sweden. It's not very high, just a little over 1000 m, but with the mountain being permanently covered in glaciers and this part of the world being renowned for crazy, unpredictable weather, we heard that going up this mountain is not like going up any other). But we chose to do the smarter thing. Walk only up to Tjäktja, and let the ankle recover, and enjoy what we were doing without any stress.

Day 4: Tjäktja to Sälka (Day 4 pictures)

About 12 km - another easy day. By now, we were doing river crossings like pros! We also saw some reindeers today - they were running around a lake but unfortunately, they were very far away for our simple point and shoot camera to capture.

Day5: Sälka to Singi (Day 5 pictures)

About 13 km - shyam was completely fine by now, and while walking, I wondered how it would feel to walk on soft non-stony ground again...

Day 6: Singi to Kebnekaise (Day 6 pictures)

About 15 km. We had been very lucky with the weather until today. Apart from an occasional shower, we had had sun every day. Today, our way was so foggy that we could not more than a few metres ahead. It was horrible, rain was just beating down our faces, and we walked in rain and cold and thick fog for about 4 hours. It was a pity because the valley near Singi is supposed to be one of the most scenic parts of our whole hike, and we didn't even get a glimpse of it. Finally, after a long time, it kind of cleared, when we came close to Kebnekaise, but not much.

Day 7: Kebnekaise to Nikkaluokta (Day 7 pictures)

I was happy that we were not going to climb the mountain. The weather had been so bad for the last day or so, that despite staying right at the mountain station, and having spent a whole day walking towards this mountain and the next whole day walking away from it, we never once got a glimpse of the top. As we left Kebnekaise, the weather got better and better, and we walked about 14 km, and then took a boat for some way, and then walked some more kilometres. But this walk was really easy, and after the boat trip, we were once again in lush green soft-earthed land, with flowers and song birds. This was quite different from our quiet time in the swedish lapland (mountains), where we almost never heard anything other than the sound of flowing water for a whole week.

Day 8:

We stayed at Nikkaluokta Sarri for the night, took a bus to Kiruna the next morning and a train home from there. On our way, we met some fellow travelers that we shared some very nice cabin time with - a Dutch couple, a French couple, a father and son from Scotland now living in Stockholm, a Swedish couple, 2 Swedish girls, 2 Dutch men, 2 sisters from the US and some solo travelers from Germany. A few of them came with us from Abisko all the way to Nikkaluokta, and most others part of the way. We met in the huts every night, shared a kitchen and sauna and often our bunk beds were in the same room, traded stories, played cards(we learnt several new games!) and read our books by the fire until about midnight every day. After all the walking and alone time in the mountains every day, we enjoyed this small society every night. 

I think we should get away like this at least once a year.