アイスランド縦断ハイキング 575km / 18 days by ホイットニー・ラ・ルッファ #04

Iceland Traverse Part 4

Start Nyidalur Hut
End Landmannalauger
Distance 141 KM

　
Our unplanned zero day at Nyidalur Hut was a welcome respite from walking through the past few days’ cold, rain, and snow. The hut was abuzz in the morning as the other guests prepared to leave; most had driven to the hut along the F-roads, and our Swiss friends gladly accepted a ride to Landmannalauger so they could get back to Ryekavijk in time for their flights home. We said our goodbyes to everyone and spent the rest of our day planning out the next leg, napping and eating whatever food we could scrounge from the hiker box at the hut.

　
The next few days promised better weather, and we were excited to get on our way and reach the legendary Landmannalauger and the Mountain Mall, where we would grab items for our final leg of the hike. We left the hut and headed along Icleand’s interior F-roads. For the most part, the tour’s first day was uneventful. The weather had calmed down, and only a light breeze was blowing. The sky was overcast, but the temps were milder and we could make good time along the long sandy roads.

　

　
The landscape surrounding us was a moonscape of black pumice sands, cinder cone mountains devoid of vegetation, and no wildlife, not even birds. The interior of Iceland is similar to walking through an Ansel Adams photo—it’s beautiful, but the color palette is a variety of shades of gray and black. While I appreciated this unique landscape we were traveling in, my eyes craved some green and other colors to liven up the landscape. We took advantage of the milder weather and terrain and ended our first day at 49km after leaving Nyidalur hut that morning.

　
The following day, we broke camp. The sky was a dark gray with low clouds, all indicating that we would eventually be dealing with a wet day of hiking. We kept along our path and eventually crossed an impressive little gorge with a beautiful blue river flowing through it. Thanks to the river, the surrounding banks were green, and my eyes enjoyed feasting on the color palette, which was as fleeting as it was. After our first break, the wind picked up to 20m/s, and the rain started. For the rest of the day, we walked hoods on, heads down, trying to cover as much ground as possible and stay positive.

The wind and rain were some of the craziest weather I had ever hiked in. The wind was blowing directly onto our left sides, and our left side was drenched with rain, but because the rain was virtually blowing sideways, the right side of our bodies was dry. As the day was starting to turn to night we had to figure out where to camp. Being in an exposed landscape with no natural windbreaks makes setting up non-free-standing tents challenging. We crested a hill and started to drop down the backside and saw a massive damn complex that creates hydroelectricity for the south of Iceland. Up on a small hill was a large cement wall. We quickly decided this was our best chance at a wind break and headed up to make camp.

　

　
The wind was whipping, and it was all we could do to hold our tents down while staking them out. Mike went to get rocks for us to put on top of the tent stakes so they wouldn’t pull out of the soft, sandy soil during the night. Suddenly, he said, “Allgood, come here right now.” I didn’t want to stop what I was doing; I only desired to get out of the weather and eat something hot. But again, he told me to come immediately, so I stood up and walked to where he was at the end of the wall, “Look,” he said. I turned the corner, and I was stunned at what I was seeing, the wall was some sort of man-made cave, with a cement roof and walls, the deeper it went, the narrower it got, but there was ample room for three people to sleep and be warm and dry out of the weather.

　
The three of us quickly gathered up our gear and scurried into the “cave.” we set up the sleeping area, took off our wet clothes to get on our warm, dry layers, and then used our hiking poles to set up a makeshift drying rack for our wet rain gear to dry out overnight. The three of us lay side by side, giggling at our good fortune, drinking hot beverages, and enjoying a hot meal. We were so overjoyed with our situation that we chatted for hours about how lucky we were, savored the safe sanctuary we had found, and drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, it took all our mental will to leave the dry, sheltered space and head out into another day of wet, windy weather. We were only about 35km from Landmannalauger, and we knew that when we arrived, there would be hot food to buy, a warm hut to stay in, and, best of all, a hot spring river to enjoy a long soak in. A few hours into our moring , we saw a river we could access to get some water, as we turned on the road we ran into our two friends who had started with us, they had camped there the night before and were heading our way, so we agreed to catch up at Landmannalauger.

　

　

　
The hiking that day was easy, we slogged along in the rain and the 3 of us had our optic senses overwhelmed as the various shades of green licken and bushes started to grace the landscape. It was as if we had gone form a black and white movie form the 1930’s to a modern 4k movie shot with vivid colors. We stopped to take in some of the natural sights as we got closer to Landmannalauger and we felt overwhelmed by the amount of traffic suddenly on the road.

　
Around 1:30 pm we started to descend into a small valley and off in the distance we spotted Landmannalauger. There was a large parking lot full of vehicles and tourist milled about in the rain. We saw the large hut where we would rest for the night, and then off to the left past the tent are were 3 green schoolbuses that are the mountain mall. We headed straight for the Mountain mall and its grill to enjoy some hot food. 3 hotdogs, 2 Gul beers and a sandwich later and I was ready to ghetto the hut and check in for our stay.

　
After grabbing a bunk, I did a quick inventory of my food for the rest of the trip and figured out what I needed to buy, being Iceland and the remote nature of the mountain mall, I bought only the essentials as they were very expensive. We spent the afternoon soaking in the natural hot spring river, then grabbed a shower and hung out at the mountain mall around a campfire meeting hikers from other parts of the world. Father being so isolated in the interior and not seeing other hikers Landmannalauger was like an international port of call for us, and a biot overwhelming.

　
That evening we made pasta and sat inside the warm hut enjoying dinner and reflecting on how far we had come and what still lay ahead. We had made it despite the challenges and ahead of us were Iceland’s 2 most famous hiking trails to end our journey on, the Laugavegur and the Fimmvorduhals trails.