JULY 2023 · ADVENTURE

Grænihryggur - Iceland Highlands trek, day two

Grænihryggur, Southern Highlands

Grænihryggur translates simply: Green Ridge. The name is descriptive, not aspirational. The ridge is green. Lime-green moss on volcanic rock, lush tundra on the slopes, the green consistent and dense in a landscape where everything else is rock and mineral and not much else.

Hikers in bright gear descending colorful rhyolite mountains with turquoise glacial lake — Descent past the turquoise lakes

— Morning — river and snow

The morning started with the river crossing — glacial water over dark boulders, cold and clear. Then snow patches on brown volcanic ground, the group crossing them without drama, boots finding the edge where the snow ended and the rock began. The ridge itself came after the climb.

Green Ridge is the kind of place you hear about before the trek and discount because the description sounds like promotion.
Grænihryggur (Green Ridge) — July 2023

Glacial river flowing over dark volcanic rocks and boulders in highlands — Morning river crossing — cold and clear

— The ridge

From the top: the valley below held a braided glacial river threading between the mountains, the river pale and wide where it spread across the valley floor. Below the ridge on the far side: turquoise glacial lakes, two of them visible, the color specific — not blue, not green, but the particular colour of rock-flour suspension in glacial meltwater. The rhyolite mountains beyond the lakes showed pink, green, and brown mineral deposits in the strata, the layers running in parallel bands across the entire face.

Turquoise glacial lakes nestled between layered rhyolite mountains — Rock-flour suspension in glacial meltwater

Aerial view of striated multicolored mountain with pink, green, brown mineral deposits — Mineral layers in the mountain face

— Descent and scale

One image from the descent: a solo hiker in a yellow jacket on the rocky pass, the scale of the mountains behind making the figure small but precise. Another: the group in high-visibility gear traversing bare volcanic slopes, the kind of terrain that offers no shelter and asks you to keep moving.

The black sand plain at the base of the ridge. Barren, flat, snow patches still present at the mountain margins. And beyond it, the multi-colored peaks.

Solo hiker in bright yellow jacket walking down rocky mountain pass — Precise figure, immense backdrop

— What the name delivers

Green Ridge is the kind of place you hear about before the trek and discount because the description sounds like promotion. Then you're on the ridge above the turquoise lakes looking at the striped mountains and there isn't a better word for it than beautiful.