JULY 2023 · ADVENTURE

The toughest day - Iceland Highlands trek, day nine

Southern Highlands, Iceland

The mountains hadn't broken me. The black lava had been building toward it for days. Day nine was flat. Featureless. A plateau that stretched into mist without offering a single landmark to walk toward.

Twin volcanic peaks reflected in still mountain lake, mirror-like water — The morning that justified the camera bag

— The good start

It started well enough. Twin volcanic peaks reflected in a still mountain lake, mirror-perfect, the kind of image that justifies a heavy camera bag. Then the descent into the valley, where a mineral stream ran rusty orange through bright green moss — iron dissolved out of the rock, the water staining everything it touched. A glacier-carved valley beyond, layered mountains, proper highland light.

The thing about repetitive terrain is that it removes everything except the body.
Icelandic Highlands — July 2023

Rusty-orange mineral stream winding through bright green moss landscape — Iron dissolved from the rock

— Then the lava

Then the lava field started and didn't stop.

Underfoot: black rock, uniform, no gradient. The worn path stretching ahead until it disappeared into the overcast sky. Other hikers visible as distant shapes — colorful jackets, a quarter-mile ahead or behind, moving at the same pace, making no apparent progress. My heel had been flaring since the canyon days. On soft ground it was manageable. On flat black rock, each step the same as the last, it became the only thing.

Lone hiker walking through endless black lava field with distant peaks — No gradient, no landmark

Distant trekkers crossing flat barren plateau beneath overcast sky — Same pace, no apparent progress

— Reduced to the body

The thing about repetitive terrain is that it removes everything except the body. The landscape offers nothing to think about. You're reduced to the pack, the heel, the next marker post, the calculation of how many kilometres to the hut.

Someone produced a Snickers at the right moment. Not a big gesture. Just recognition — that we were both doing this, that here was fuel, that it was hard today. That was enough.

Yellow and orange tents on dark lava field with mountains in mist — Already up when we arrived

— Camp and light

The yellow and orange tents were already up when we reached camp. The mountain hut had a red roof and was beginning to dissolve into the fog on the moss-covered plain behind it. I shot it before going inside.

Panoramic highland light in the late afternoon, bathed golden across the layered ridges. The light was there whether you earned it or not. Day nine, you earned it.