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Published: March 7th 2008
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Supertruck
This monster was put through its paces! This was THE day - snowmobiling on the Vatnajokull glacier outside Reykjavik. Again, this was something I had done the previous year and knew that it would be the highlight of Jo's trip. I wasn't wrong.
This trip starts early with a pickup at about 8am or so. It was organised through Iceland Excursions, who are a great company to organise Icelandic trips with. Because of an admin error we got ungraded from a pure snowmobiling trip to a trip which involves snowmobiles as well as the Golden Circle tour. Bonus! As can probably guess, yes, I did this tour as well last year. No problem though as it is great.
The trip is run in huge trucks on raised suspension and massive snow tyres, as the picture show. This is because the terrain after Gullfoss is all offroad and largely covered in snow and ice 12 months a year. 5 of these troucks set off together. On the way to Gullfoss the weather deteriorated rapidly, until the driver was only able to see about 5 metres in front of him due to blizzard conditions. As were on the main road there were no problems.
After a short
After the whiteout
This was as good as conditions got on our trip up the glacier. It got much worse... stop at Gullfoss the weather improved a bit for the drive up onto the Vatnajokull glacier. Not for long. The blizzard picked up again and visibility was terrible. I had a funny feeling that the snowmobile part of the tour may be a 50/50 proposition at this stage. as we got into serious off road stuff the weather also got worse. The huge trucks started to struggel in the blizzard and with the deep snow. On the way up 1 of the trucks got stuck and had to be left behind while the other 4 trucks made their way up slowly. A trip to the base camp would normally have taken 30 minutes from the foot of the glacier on a good day. 1 and a half hours later we were still not at the camp and conditions were getting worse. Then our truck came off what the closest thing we could liken to a "road". Buried in deep snow I knew we were in trouble when our hardy Icelandic driver, who does this day in day out, said "Shit!" and put his head in his hands. Jo and I were loving the experience, but the woman in front of
us in the coach started to cry as she was clearly terrified about being stuck here overnight and the subject of some sort of mountain rescue mission.
The conditions were the worse I had ever seen - visibility was about 5 to 10 feet at most, and the winds were about 80-100mph. It got even more interesting when the driver told us all that this was the worst weather he had even seen as well - and he was from Iceland. Cool!
Ultimately, as we sat there stranded and were dug out of the snow, the base camp radioed to say the snowmobiling would have to be cancelled as the conditions were too bad. Big surprise there then! But still, what an experience. Getting oursleves and back down the glacier was as much fun as it was gling up it. Plus we had to stop and then dig out the first stranded truck. The drivers did an incredible job getting us up as far as they did, and back down again in 1 piece. On the way down we got to get out and stretch our legs after the experience and the mood was great. No-one was down
about the failed trip or the weather - everyone had enjoyed the experience (apart of the woman in front of us...).
Back on ground level we went on to the Golden Circle part of the tour. The Gullfoss waterfall was incredible (again), with icicles everywhere. Then onto Geysir (which gives it name to every other geysir now). The main geysir goes off maybe only once a year and is very infrequent. However, the main attraction is a geysir which goes off fairly regularly - maybe every 5-10 minutes. There are lots of failed explosions, but then you can see the surfgace water swell up and a split second later a 40-50 high jet of water shoots up. Its worth the great and a great scene to witness.
The last part of the tour was the Thingvellir national park. This park started like as the traditional meeting ground where once a year the law of Iceland was read out, people assembled to settle disagreements in a form of court, and some trade was done. Now it has gained additional attention as it is the most obvious place to see the separation of the tectonic plates. The middle of the
park is essentially the "crumbs" falling into the middle, as the 2 plates slowly move apart (only millimetres every year). One side of the park is on the North American continent, while the other side is on the Eurasian plate.
It was a pretty incredible day all in all. Sure, we didn't get to go on snowmobiles, and Jo kept pinching my very warm 66 North hat, but its not every day you get caught in proper blizzard conditions.
Dinner that night was a Cafe Paris in the city centre. We had a good time and a couple of drinks to top off the day. B oth had a great day.
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