JULY 2023 · ADVENTURE

Glacier to glacier - Iceland Highlands trek, day eight

Southern Highlands, Iceland

One glacier in the morning, another one at the end. Between them: rolling highlands, long sightlines, the same mountains seen from six different angles across eight hours of walking.

Trekkers crossing dark volcanic sand plain with snow-capped mountains ahead — Three hours of walking toward those peaks

— Dark sand, distant peaks

The day opened on dark volcanic sand plain — fine, black, almost smooth underfoot, like nothing else on the route. Snow-capped peaks sat directly ahead, the distance deceptive in high-altitude light. You aimed at them for three hours before they moved.

Two glaciers. The day makes more sense measured that way than in miles.
Icelandic Highlands — July 2023

Single pink flower blooming on dark volcanic lava field — One flower, no obvious reason for it

— Small interruptions

The cotton grass was unexpected. White seed-heads on thin stems, growing in dense patches across the dark lava field, the contrast sharp and quiet. A single pink flower on an otherwise bare lava shelf — one flower, no obvious reason for it being there. These things kept appearing on the rolling terrain between the glaciers: small interruptions in the black.

The hikers ahead dropped into a lush green valley and then climbed out again, the slope exposing moss-covered volcanic rock, dark stone, the full palette of the Highlands in twenty vertical metres. A red shelter hut in the next valley — tiny, improbable, necessary — marked the turnaround in the mileage.

Field of white cotton grass flowers blooming in Iceland — Cotton grass on dark lava

Red shelter hut in vast barren valley beneath steep mountain — Tiny, improbable, necessary

— Shifting terrain

What made day eight long but not hard was the terrain shifting. Dark sand became moss valley became exposed ridge became cotton grass became the green valley became exposed rock again. Each section looked different from the last. The mountains — the same mountains — offered a new angle every hour. The signpost at the mid-point junction had five arms, all pointing somewhere.

Icelandic hiking signpost with directional signs pointing to various locations — Five arms, all pointing somewhere

— The second glacier

The second glacier appeared at the end of the afternoon. You'd been walking toward it for two hours without the angle changing much. Then the ground descended and it was there: grey-blue ice, crevassed, resting on the mountain like something left behind.

Two glaciers. The day makes more sense measured that way than in miles.