500 year old ice and Pepperoni Tacos

Day 2, 7 days remaining.

We got back from our Northern Lights Explorer hunt around 12:15am. I knew I had to be up at 7:30 the next morning for another tour pickup so just took off my cold weather clothes and went to bed.

My alarm woke me up the next morning and it left me with a choice. I could A) sleep in for another 30 minutes and go get breakfast or I could B) get up, shower, then go get breakfast. I opted for A. So if you're paying attention, I'd be going another day of sweaty physical activity without showering. But what the hell, we were going to be outside all day anyway. I went down to eat breakfast, which I made a point of doing here since I knew I would need the calories these first few days, in fact most days I would need the energy. My Fitbit said I was walking over 7 miles a day. Mind you none of it is flat. It also said I was burning close to 6000 calories a day. So I ate a breakfast of protein and fruit.

Once again, packed up my day pack with what I would need today and waited for my pickup. Today's tour was the "Blue Ice" trip. Hiking on a glacier and ice wall climbing. The glacier was 2 and a half hours from Reykjavic so we stopped halfway at a bus stop for a restroom break as well as to buy lunch to eat on the Glacier. This is where I was introduced to Pepperoni Tacos. But I will get to that later. We hopped back into the van for the 2nd half of our journey to the glacier.

Upon arrival, we got a quick safety talk and got our gear. They provided helmets, harnesses, crampons, and an ice ax. Then we walked the quarter mile to the glacier.

Once we got to the base, we were instructed how to properly fit our crampons and more safety talk. IE, do not tear off your own calf muscle with your crampon (it has happened). There is no aid and if you do, you'll probably bleed to death. He didn't say that part but all of us made damn sure not to tear our own calf muscles off.

Our guide's name is Thor. He is awesome by default. His full name is Thorvill but he goes by Thor. I would too. 

This glacier is called Myrdalsjokull and it's one of probably 20 in Iceland. I will be visiting the largest in a few days. It's quite surreal. It is approximately 250 meters thick in the middle and it is approximately 500 years old.

I hereby declare thee Mt. Brown Bear

After walking around for about an hour with me eating pieces of 500 year old ice and our little wiry mountain goat safety guide was hopping all over the glacier looking for a new ice wall for us to climb, he finally returned and announced he found a new one. Completely untouched. They asked if we wanted to try it and we all said hell yes so we set off for this new location.

Our guides making it look easy...

This is what they found. 30 feet of sheer wall on the left. 30 feet of sloped wall on the right. I would suck at both.

Before we continue to my failures as a ice wall climber, let's go back to the topic of lunch. While our guides were setting up the ropes and whatnot, we all broke into our packs to eat our lunch we bought earlier. I bought a coke, a bag of dried fruit, and a "Pepperoni Taco". It's basically ham, pepperoni, cheese, and "magic mayo" as quoted by my new friend Kim from North Carolina on a parmesan roll. It is quite frankly the most amazing sandwich I've ever eaten. Forget the pastrami sandwich from Carnegie, forget anything you see on Food Network, you want a Pepperoni Taco from the bus stop on route 1 outside of Hella, Iceland. You will not be disappointed.

Ok. Back to the glacier. They got all the ropes anchored and we got in line to get climbing. We had a group of about 15 people so it took some time for my turn to come around. Good thing too because I apparently wasn't paying attention when they talked about proper boots. Let's get one thing straight. My boots were perfectly fine... for hiking. They checked them... for ankle protection and I declined the 1000 kroner to rent climbing boots. Which I would find out later are like ski boots but with tread. They are rigid as hell. My boots are "soft", which makes climbing impossible because once you try to kick in and put any weight on your feet, the boot flexes which makes the crampon slip out of the ice. I got about 15 feet up the first wall and 15 feet up the 2nd before calling it a day. 

For the record, I was the only person to get to try (and fail) on both walls so I have that dubious honor to be proud of. But we all got a good laugh at me hanging off a ice wall. 

Here's some pictures of skilled people with proper equipment doing it the right way. 

It was still crazy good fun and I met a bunch of amazing people to continue the rest of the trip with. After 3 hours on the glacier, we walked back down and headed back to Reykjavic, with 1 last stop on the way.

About an hour from Myrdalsjokull is the waterfall Skogafoss. We arrived around 4pm with the sun shining on it from the front. It made for quite the view.

I got the shower I so badly needed

This country keeps getting better and better and I still have almost a week left. I can happily announce Iceland is now atop my list of favorite countries in the world.