Day 4 - Laugavegur: Landmannalaugar to Hrafntinnusker
A steep climb past mudpots and fumeroles and hot springs, then past spectacularly coloured earth and water, finishing with a snow crossing over a pass.
This day was both a photographer’s dream, and a photographer’s nightmare. Dream because the scenery is gobsmacking.
And not so good because my camera, an Olympus OMD 5 mk 2, was new for this trip. After using a Nikon for decades, the menu was a steep learning curve, to say the least! And I inadvertently did something nightmarish: I set the ISO to 20,000. Yes, I nearly cried when I discovered this a day and a half later. I still have no idea how I managed it, but now always limit the ISO range so it can never, ever happen again! But, thankfully, even though I was only using jpegs at the time, I shot in RAW as well. For this blog, I edited with DxO PURE RAW and was astonished at the detail retrieved.
Our intended journey over the next few days
We leave the main valley and follow Graenagil River as an alternate route to avoid doubling back along the Hellismannaleid. There are dozens of walks in the area (note hiker in a yellow jacket top centre) – if we did this route again, we’d schedule in at least two days around Landmannalaugar.
Rugged lava fields, a rushing river and rhyolite. That “horny” formation in the background is colloquially known as a "troll's dick"!
Into the hot area - steaming fumaroles and mudpots. A sulphorous miasma blankets the area. Goodness, it’s smelly!
This area, so close to Landmannalaugar, gets plenty of day hikers, but they thin as the day wears on.
Astonishing. We scarcely know where to look – we are completely inside the vista. The lava field is such a contrast
The path follows spines ever upwards. It is a very slow journey not because of the climb, but because we stop so often to savour the views, to peer at bubbling mudpots or steaming fumaroles.
And the views keep changing around every corner!
For an idea of scale, those are people silhouetted against the snow top centre!
You keep thinking it can’t possibly get any more spectacular, and then you see this…
or this!
There are a lot of small, steep valleys to cross. I can see why this would be tricky early or late in the season with snow or ice bridges collapsing underfoot
The track shimmies along spines.
From fire into the snow.
More of what Geoff calls humpty-doos, steep ups and downs. And snow and golden moss and steam.
It’s particularly refreshing not having everything roped off, as it would be in Australia, in case some moron decides to stick their hand into a fumarole. The Icelandic people are rather wonderful.
Still climbing!
Wow.
And finally up onto the pass and into the snow.
There it is! Hrafntinnusker Hut!
Reykyafjoll, with chocolate icing.
This campground is one of two notorious campsites at elevation: terrain makes a huge difference to wind exposure and this spot has many of the features conducive to strong wind, though they can be ameliorated when you know how. After seeing a ton of tents destroyed two nights ago at Landmannalaugar about 500m lower, it’s clear why this spot would be even tougher. This is one of two huts we booked at the highest elevation because we figured this was where the most severe weather was likely to be. The weather is perfect today, but I’m very happy to be in the hut.
With double the number of hikers in the hut because of all of us who had to delay a day, it’s packed! Even downstairs the whole dining room floor gets filled. But falling asleep is not a problem; we’ve all had such a great day.