Day 3: Jake Million

Today on our journey through Iceland we hopped onto our monster truck/bus and headed for Seljandafoss and we all got drenched by the waterfall spray. Our clothes were drenched, but our spirits kept high. A short time after we walked further on , we entered a gorge in the mountain and in its centre there was yet another waterfall. 

It was a short journey back to the bus and we were on the road once more. About a half hour later we arrived at Eyjafjallajökull and watched a short video about Eyjafjallajökull and its effects on nearby farmers and the globe (and no the world was not devoured by lava, by globally, I mean every nearby airport and also most of Europe could not allow any plane into the air due to the ash). Once again, a long bus ride with Dave filling us with information as were all trying to sleep. Eventually we arrived at another but larger waterfall called Skogafoss, and this had a huge set of stairs to the top that took a good 20 minutes to climb but it was definitely worth the view. We headed back down and almost everyone seemed to count how many steps there were.  It was funny to hear how different the results were, I heard from someone that there were four hundred steps and then I counted only three hundred and thirty steps. 

We went to a nearby restaurant had our lunches and hit the road once more. Now we were going heading for what I thought was the highlight of the day, glacier walking, we drove for about an hour until we got to somewhere want looked like the middle of nowhere. We met the instructor called Orri who had actually taken us through the cave yesterday and was now walking us over a glacier! 

We grabbed our gear and headed off over the hills. A while of walking and the glacier was insight, it was an incredible view. We got to a big drop off with the glacier below and put our crampons on (the frame of our shoes with spikes on to keep steady on the ice) and a pick axe to dig into the ice if we slipped. We inspected a large hole going very deep into the glacier called a moulin. We also saw a huge crevasse in the glacier that looked fascinating, luckily on our trek nobody fell or dropped their pick down the slope. We reached a high point of the glacier and looked at what the glaciers effect on the mountains where it has eroded/ripped off rock from the sides off the mountains to its side.

At the top of where we could walk there was a thin stream of water what was crystal clear and drinkable! We filled our bottles and refreshed ourselves after dragging ourselves up this massive sheet of ice. Many pictures were taken and I'm pretty sure I blinked in all of them but overall it was well worth the hike and my favourite part of the trip so far.  

Jake Million

Jake getting soaked by the spray from Seljandafoss waterfall

Taking in the views from the top end of the glacier