All the way back in 2012, I spent a beautiful sunny fortnight in Reykjavík, because if you fall in love in winter, you have to go back to make sure you like it in summer as well, and I did. It was, I later learned, an uncharacteristically hot and sunny summer of the kind you rarely get in Iceland but I guess Iceland was trying to impress me and it worked. I did a lot of day trips that summer, not many of which have made it onto this blog, and one of them was an expedition out to Þórsmörk.
It was with a company known at the time as Iceland Excursions and now known better as Grayline. Back then it was one of the big two tour companies, with an office in the heart of the downtown area and the freedom to take over part of the large car park now buried under the new shopping streets right next to Harpa. Last time I looked, the tour guide in question, one Mathias Pelz, was still working for them, although even Grayline is gradually being eaten up by tourism conglomerate Icelandia and they don’t publish lists of their staff like Grayline did.
That’s not the only thing that’s changed: this tour doesn’t exist anymore. A couple of companies do superjeep trips that start an hour and a half out of Reykjavík, and Reykjavík Excursions run a very pricey private tour but Þórsmörk is one of those rare places that’s not really accessible to the average tourist anymore unless they’re doing the Laugavegur Trail and arriving or departing either by foot or the hiking bus. Which at least means it’s not over crowded like so much of the Golden Circle and South Coast is, I guess.
My story starts at probably about 7.30am in that car park in Reykjavik. I’d exchanged my booking confirmation for an actual ticket in the office and was climbing onto the expedition truck – picture something like an armoured high-suspension minibus – when driver-guide Mathias stopped me.
“Do you have better shoes than that?”
I looked down. I was wearing my mountain sandals and hadn’t for a second given any thought to my footwear for a tourist day out.
“I have boots but they’re back at my guesthouse,” I said, seeing the day exploding into flaming fragments before my very eyes.
“Those aren’t going to be good enough,” Mathias said. “We’re climbing a mountain.”
Ohhh. Ok, day saved.
“These’ll be fine,” I said, relieved. “I’ve climbed mountains in them before.”
Mathias wasn’t convinced. “We have to cross a river.”
Still good. “They’re waterproof.”
He argued no more but I could see that although he’d conceded defeat in letting me on in unsuitable shoes, I had by no means won the argument.
We drove out to Þórsmörk, Thor’s Woodland (Þ is pronounced like the Th in Thor). It’s a green oasis surrounded by three glaciers and reached by driving up a riverbed. With the river still in it. These days, the valley is much wider than the river which meanders around in it and you never know from one week to the next exactly where it’ll be, or how deep or fast-flowing it is either, come to that. The result is that it’s generally a rough drive on grey gravel with an unknowable number of difficult and dangerous river crossings. The entrance to the valley is just inland from Seljalandsfoss, so it’s the best part of two hours – longer if you take a comfort break – before you even start the journey into Þórsmörk.
Our first stop was at Gigjökull, a glacial tongue coming down from Eyjafjallajökull, one of the three glaciers enclosing Þórsmörk. There was once a small glacier lagoon here but the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, still fresh in everyone’s mind at the time, had filled the lagoon with ash and dust. Still, it made a good viewpoint, being slightly raised above the valley and I took advantage of the break to scamper around taking pictures.
Our main destination for the day was the Básar hut & campsite where we sat on impossibly green grass to eat our packed lunch. The main reason Þórsmörk is such an oasis isn’t anything to do with the glaciers providing shelter or any other natural freak: it’s simply that sheep are kept out of here. Iceland’s climate isn’t hugely inducive to lush greenery but it turns out that if sheep didn’t freely roam, grazing on the entire country all summer long, it could be a lot more green than it is. That unnaturally beautiful blue sky overhead, green grass below – Þórsmörk has never looked more beautiful.
Now came the time to put the sandals to the test. We were going to climb Bólfell, the mountain that looms over Básar. For narrative purposes, I should be nervous: this is the point where the experienced tour guide is proved right and I, the idiot tourist, can’t do the hike and have to sit at the hut and wait for everyone to get back. Day ruined. But it never crossed my mind to worry about it, any more than it had crossed my (admittedly idiotic) mind that morning to put my boots on. I knew my sandals were up to the job.
So we hiked. Yes, it was uphill but it was on half-decent paths and a tour group is never going to move particularly quickly and it went without a hitch. I felt Mathias’s eyes sweep over my feet once or twice but I ignored it and carried on. I even found a stream or two to paddle in. Actually, back in 2012 I was shameless about asking people to take photos of me and had the time, energy and capacity to get some of my favourite pictures on the way up. It was worth the effort, by the way – to stand on a rocky outcrop and look down at Þórsmörk was amazing and shoe drama or no, it had been a surprisingly easy hike for the height gained.
Descent was… well, easier in some ways. There were stairs directly down to Básar and the fact that my knees were trembling by the time I was back at the campsite is probably due more to my old lady knees than my lack of ankle support. Downhill is hard on the knees anyway but a couple of hundred steps with no break in them would try the hardiest hiker.
When we were ready and we could all stand up without wobbling, we headed out of Þórsmörk. Oh, the day was far from over. Mathias won my undying respect and awe by overtaking a 4×4 in the river – driving across a river is in itself a difficult and potentially dangerous thing to do (if you’re ever in Þórsmörk, the hut at Skagfjördsskáli on the other side of the valley from Básar has a book of pictures of just how wrong it can go) but to overtake… words fail me. Imagine being in your jeep and in your mirrors, you see a bus bearing down on you. Well, the river is wider than the road and if you’ve got the skills, the river might well be the best place to overtake the slower-moving vehicle.
Our next stop was at Stakkholtsgjá, a canyon burrowing into the side of Eyjafjallajökull and site of Mathias’s concern “but we have to cross a river”. Stakkholtsgjá, like the Þórsmörk valley, is a gravel valley with a river wandering around it but enclosed by relatively high narrow walls and the river is on a human scale rather than a vehicular one. We had to walk up this canyon, crossing the river as many times as it demanded that week and there was a waterfall hiding in a narrower canyon of its own at the end.
And here was the crossing. We were going to cross on stepping stones, some just below the level of the bubbling rushing water and all wet, far too smooth and slippery. I watched the group set out on this adventure, all holding onto each other, flailing around, trying to keep the water from running over the top of their suitable footwear and all guaranteed to slip and injure themselves at some point. As I waited for my turn to join the clown show, I looked at the river. For all its violence, it was only just over ankle deep and I was wearing waterproof sandals. Time to prove Mathias wrong once and for all. I waded in.
Yes, it was cold. It was very cold. It’s coming straight off the glacier somewhere above us and was ice only two or three miles further up. But walking straight across the rocky bed was infinitely easier, safer and quicker than tackling the stepping stones. By the time I’d crossed, not a single other person on the stepping stones had made it to the opposite bank.
Because I’ve been a Guide since I was five years old and have an inbuilt desire to be helpful – and because I also have an inbuilt desire to be petty and show off that I was right and you were wrong, I decided that instead of waiting for twenty-odd minutes on the opposite bank for all my tour-mates in their sturdy leather boots and trainers to wobble their way over, I might as well wade back in and act as a support – a hand here, a shoulder there, to get everyone across without any unplanned cold baths. Always useful to have someone in the water grabbing at wobblers. Always fun to be just a tiny bit smug.
Out of the water, we continued up to the smaller canyon which had a stream running through it. There was room to walk alongside it but I was sort of in the habit of paddling by now, so I did. And there, at the end, was the waterfall, tumbling into the cave through a hole in the roof. We took it in turns to take photos with it and I scrambled up onto the boulder in front of it for my picture. I had to go back and look at that picture last summer to see if it was actually Gljúfrabúi, the so-called secret waterfall in a cave a short walk from Seljalandsfoss but it isn’t. Of course it isn’t. It’s just one of many waterfalls coming down from Eyjafjallajökull’s glacier into caves they’ve carved out. If you walked into every crack in the mountainside in search of volcanoes on the way back from Þórsmörk, you’d see a lot of waterfalls and you’d spend a very long time getting home.
We walked back to the bus. I repeated my trick of acting as a waterborne support and as we walked through the canyon, I found myself walking near Mathias. No more sideways dubious glances at my feet. Clearly acknowledging that I’d been right but not quite wanting to say it so many words, he said “You have seal feet,” which is perhaps not exactly a compliment but something I remember every time I step into freezing water in Iceland. I have seal feet.
I’d succeeded in doing an adventure tour in unsuitable footwear and proved myself in the process. I’ve worn sandals in Iceland in the summer ever since without a shred of doubt and I think they’re the best footwear for most jobs.
As for the rest of that day, we repeated the process in Nauthusagil, another canyon with a waterfall in it. We stopped at Seljalandsfoss and walked behind it just as the afternoon sun came low enough in the sky to give it the most beautiful lighting I’ve seen in all my visits and we ran down to the black sand beach at Stokkseyri (I think). I did mess up a bit here. I paddled, I got my feet wet and then I had to walk up the beach with the black sand sticking to them. It’s fine, once it’s dry it’ll just brush off but you can’t do that on the bus so I sat with scratchy feet all the way to Reykjavík where I rinsed them clean in a fountain in Ingólfstorg. I still smile every time I see it. In 2012, I washed my feet in that.
And to Mathias – thanks for taking a chance on me that day and also, I’m the person who called out “they catch fire!” when you were teaching us about trolls in the cave one time.
I Am A Polar Bear 