63 Degrees north - Iceland trek

Day two gave us Grænihryggur — Green Ridge — and it's the most beautiful place I've been. The path runs a high spine with the ground dropping away on both sides: turquoise glacial lakes far below on one side, lime-green moss covering dark volcanic rock on the other, braided rivers threading through the valley floor. One of those places where stopping to photograph feels inadequate because the camera can't hold all the directions at once.

Day three was black desert and three interconnected glacial lakes sitting in a volcanic crater between steep mountains. Turquoise water against dark rock. Off the established routes, away from other groups. It felt like a discovery that wasn't — someone had been there before — but felt like one anyway.

Day four the paths had been destroyed. The canyons were navigable but not marked. Steep moss-covered walls, narrow creek crossings, terrain that required the group to move together and think through each passage. Geothermal steam rising from a river in the mist. A pink mineral pool in the moss, glowing faintly. No scale, no obvious way.

Days five and six were the lava fields, and the lava fields were the lesson. They looked barren and then they weren't. The longer you moved through them the more they offered: yellow-green moss on black rock, rusty mineral staining, isolated red-roofed huts appearing on the plateau. Close attention was what they required. They didn't offer themselves to a glance.

Day seven erased the horizon. Thick fog sat on the plateau and didn't lift. No depth, no scale, just an infinite near-field of moss-green, the occasional geothermal pool appearing out of the mist. We navigated by compass and signpost. The feeling wasn't of being on the surface of something but inside it — not viewing the landscape but moving through a substance. It was the most disorienting day and, for that reason, one of the most memorable.

Day nine nearly finished me. Not the mountains — I was prepared for the mountains. What wore me down was the featureless black lava plateau that stretched from mid-morning into early afternoon with no variation, no landmark, nothing to measure progress against. My heel was flaring. Somewhere in the middle of it a companion passed me a Snickers. That's the moment I remember most clearly from the whole ten days — not any of the views. The acknowledgement, the sugar, the company. It was enough.

Day ten: river crossings. Icy water, moss-walled canyons, each crossing needing full attention. A POV shot of my own feet on a weathered wooden bridge over dark water — I took it because it felt like the right frame for that moment, the ground finally something other than lava. Then the dwarf birch started appearing on the lower moorland. Sparse, wind-shaped, low to the ground. The first green that wasn't moss or geothermal mineral. We'd been in the highlands long enough that ordinary vegetation felt strange.

The colours study — a separate series — was the attempt to record what the landscape is actually made of: sulfur yellow, rust-orange iron oxide, the pale turquoise of silica-rich hot springs, cream and ochre rhyolite streaks. Each colour marks a process. The geology is still happening. You're walking through it while it continues.