Apart from the afternoon on the first day and yesterday, we’ve been blessed with great weather this week. Even too good at times! And today was shaping up to be a great one, as the the rain from yesterday had turned into snow overnight and we got to drive through a gorgeous white landscape to the Langisjór lake west from Vatnajökull.
There’s a hiking trail following the south-east side of the lake and at one point the mountain rises directly from the lake so the only option is go up. The trail was very steep and narrow and looked very tricky when you saw it from the distance, but it wasn’t so bad once you started going up. Just a couple of difficult spots to crawl over and there you were on top, following the narrow ridge of the mountain with mirror calm lakes on both sides. Spectacular and worth the hike many times over! I was also glad to be standing on the peak just for the sake of standing on a peak. I wanted to conquer a mountain in Iceland, this wasn’t a big one but it counts!
The next stop was at a place which gave a great view towards a valley lined with snow capped mountains. I went up the nearest peak for a higher view, and down on the other side, and then decided that I preferred the view from the top anyway so back up the hill I went again. I’ve actually gotten a lot more exercise on this trip than I thought I would get, I seem to be the one who goes the furthest in search of pictures, but most of the time the trouble doesn’t seem to pay off at all!
The afternoon was winding on and we were getting a bit tired, not just for today but at least I felt like I had reached a saturation point, I was out of pictures, so to speak. So the next time we stopped, I even waited for a few extra seconds before I got out of the car and even then just took some half hearted snapshots. When we got back to the car, we didn’t get very far before the next stop and by now I was really out of ideas. But how often do I get to visit this place…. so I finally grabbed my bag and tripod and even changed the lens for the last pictures of the trip. And predictably, deleted them at home. But it really was no big loss because I knew for sure that I had gotten some great pictures elsewhere on this trip!
