Yesterday I rejoined the group to walk to Emstrur and now we’re finishing the Laugavegur trail, reaching Þórsmörk. I’ve got another two days after this but this is the last day of the actual trail.
From Emstrur we could virtually see our destination – over the hills and below Eyjafjallajökull. The first bit was a bit up and down and then we had to cross the canyon we’d visited the night before – well, most of us – but of course that’s impossible so we had to walk round hills and valley until we got to the bridge over the smaller side canyon.
The landscape at first was quite red – dark red, darker than scoria but red-tinted and for the first time it was reasonably warm. I’d put my red t-shirt on as my main base layer and had hopes of being able to walk in just that. It had been very clear and dry when I first got up but by the time we’d struck camp, eaten breakfast, packed the car and said goodbye to Eiður, who we wouldn’t need once he’d delivered our luggage to Þórsmörk a few hours before we got there, it had clouded over. But by now I was actually getting the hang of layering and I wasn’t even wearing my waterproofs for once so it was a good day so far.
The bridge across the canyon is on a smaller tributary. We scrambled right down the side, through black dust, across a narrow rickety bridge and then along the side of the smaller canyon. Next were two “steps” up onto the plateau – long, difficult climbs, as if Gullfoss had dried up.
We stopped for first lunch overlooking Markarfljótsgljúfur and when I produced my Instax to take a photo of the view, it got spotted and François immediately wanted to take a photo of me with it – first picture of me of the entire trip, actually.
Then we were going to walk a bit more “Icelandic flat” for a while. It had ups and downs, over ridges and hills but it wasn’t too bad.
Eyjafjallajökull was always in front of us and the Unicorn – or Rhino – mountain, which we’d first spotted from above Emstrur yesterday, was always ahead to our right. It kind of looks like a mountain with a thumb sticking out of the side. As animals go, François is quite right, it does look more like a rhino than a unicorn. A lot of the terrain around here was glacial moraines, leftover from when Mýrdalsjökull stretched this far, in the last major ice age.
The early afternoon continued Icelandic Flat, although it gradually became greener and we began to see some plant life. At one point we stopped and François pointed out the hut in front of us. There would be a longish flattish walk, then we’d go up and down a bit and between those two hills is today’s river crossing and the hut is just behind that cone-shaped mountain in front of Eyjafjalljökull. It actually didn’t look too far. It looked less far than that blinking light on the ridge above Hrafntinnusker. This was supposed to be one of our longer days.
We took a short break in one of the many unexpected little valleys. The others had by now learnt to be suspicious if we stopped and François made us eat or offered chocolate and/or cookies – it usually meant a difficult bit was about to come. I’d found a lot of it difficult so this hadn’t really struck me yet. Today’s chocolate was orange crisp, although it’s not that easy to tell from the packaging. It’s kind of orangeish and there’s a picture of the crispy bits but no actual orange pictures. Luckily I know the word appelsín. While we were stopped, I also stuck blister plasters on both feet. I had no blisters but I could feel hotspots starting to form on the balls of my feet where there isn’t enough cushioning in my boots. Prevention is always better than cure.
On we went. Now we were getting into the boundaries of the Þórsmörk area. It was becoming noticeably green, with shrubbery and miniature trees rather than moss and lichen. We heard birds! François pointed out a ptarmigan in a small canyon ahead. Earlier on we had stood over a canyon with particularly thick springy moss and wondered about the difference between a gorge and a canyon. With no internet access out here, we could only speculate and every theory sounded as plausible as the last. I was going for “they mean exactly the same thing but English stole one from one source and the other from somewhere else.” Gorge sounded like it might have descended from French or Latin. Canyon? Well, there’s the Grand Canyon. Maybe it’s descended from a Native American language.
The landscape was looking more and more like Rohan. Monday had been Lord of the Rings-y, with the crossing of Caradhras. Now we were into the open plains and snow-backed country of the horse-people. A lot of this bit was a track across a black sand path, finished with a couple of hills. François waited for me to catch and when, as usual, he said “Jæja?” I shook my head and we took a short break in the fine black sand.
I changed my shoes. I wondered if François might object to me putting on my sandals but the flat spots were starting to feel sore and it was making me drop further and further back. I didn’t relish having to carry my boots but the sandals felt amazing. They had cushioning and airflow and it was like having a whole new set of legs on. I bounced on ahead to the front. François said he’d notice I’d changed my shoes and I agree, explained that they were more comfortable and I could always change back when we stopped for lunch in half an hour. He said as long as I was ok it was fine – we had two big hills and there would be plenty of time to change back if I wanted to. But I knew I wouldn’t want to.
Lunch was at the front of the first of the two hills before the campsite, separated by today’s river crossing. A pretty late lunch, considering we were less than an hour and a half from Þórsmörk. There was a river and canyon here – we would be crossing this one in a few minutes via a bridge. I got the map out to have a look while I ate and Evan leaned over to have a look. I showed him where I thought we were and explained my reasoning, pointing out rivers and mountains and matching François’ description of the rest of the day with the contour lines. Evan was duly impresse and took it to François to see how close we were. And with the obligatory mutter of “nice map”, he confirmed I was correct.
We crossed the river by a rickety bridge. The river was at the bottom of a narrow canyon, a little too fast and furious for my liking. This bridge clearly survives by being high above all but the worst flood surges.
The first of the last two hills was bad, even in sandals. I struggled and stopped many times. From the top we could see the whole grey riverbed, all the way down to Seljalandsfoss. And of course, part of that was the river that we had to cross. So own we went, following tractor tracks down more thick black sand.
I’d heard this last river crossing could be pretty bad, often thigh or even waist deep. This looked fine, though. This was just a wandering river that can’t decide where in the wide gravel bed to run. François has a favourite crossing spot but of course, it moves. In I went, already in my sandals. It was faster than I expected, and colder, and I didn’t mind at all François’ arm across the hardest bit. We went downstream, crossing smaller streams, heading for where the path goes up into the trees. At this point I should have put my boots back on. Sandals only work if they grip your foot and they don’t do that when wet. The last hill wasn’t so bad, mostly following a rough vehicle track or walking through the trees but it was hard with wet sandals on and I struggled more than I should have.
Of course, there’s always a bit more up but eventually I made it and then it was downhill to Langidalur, our hut of choice. Langidalur is generally used by groups. Básar is generally used by locals and Húsadalur is generally used by tourists – it has wifi, a bar/restaurant and hotpots. That sounded nice. But there, yet again, was our hut, right down below us.
It’s a nice campsite, very green and soft, with a huge garden full of trees and bushes and streams and little wooden bridges. Most of us pitched camp near the dinner tent – Nikki found her own hidden corner as far away as possible and Csilla favoured an open spot on an “island” near the main hut” – and then we went to the little onsite shop, which sells camping essentials like stove fuel and boil-in-the-bag food, beer, postcards and crisps. Our group was craving salt and a big bag of orange Doritos was bought, triggering an argument of “crisps” vs “chips”. Many beers were bought, cooled rapidly in the nearest bit of stream and drunk. I settle for Egils Appelsin.
We sat on the grass outside the food tent in a circle, discussing the walk over the last four days – the best bits and the worst bits. A lot of people had really enjoyed Monday’s emergency shelter and the ice axe and cutting the steps. The soup when we got in to Hrafntinnusker. No one had anything really bad to say about any of it. We ate and drank and laughed and met wardens and adventures.is employees and volunteers and assorted friends of François. And then the four-day people got on the bus and left and we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves for a while.
But there’s always dinner. We chopped thousands of onions and peppers and tomatoes and François made bolognaise, with enough spaghetti to feed the entire campsite twice. We squished in. The food tent in Þórsmörk is more like a circus or bell tent rather than a padded quilted tunnel and although the group is smaller, the table is too. Margrét, one of the wardens, came for dinner, bringing an iPad and a very limited wifi connection to watch Belgium vs England. It sort of worked but had a particularly annoyed habit of freezing every time anything interesting happene.
Even I shared in the spaghetti, trying to look like I had any idea how to eat long pasta in front of people I don’t actually know that well, with the cheese sliced thinly over the top. I didn’t partake in the caramel cheesecake, which excited Csilla so very much that she couldn’t help with the washing-up. François took a lot of the leftovers to the other groups and wardens and there was a lot leftover. I went to bed not too long after that.
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