(readers note: I changed the format so the pictures follow the relevant paragraphs. Be sure to read all the way to the end. Click on any picture to see all the pictures in full size)
After our marathon first day, we wake to the single best continental buffet we have ever had. The local smoked salmon is finished with dill, the freshly baked rustic bread is lightly seeded, the Icelandic yogurts are beautifully topped with a variety of fruits and nuts, the coffee is strong and rich and served in big chrome carafes.
We need a hardy breakfast for the long hike we have planned. If you follow the news or you’ve seen the 60 Minutes piece, you already know about the recent eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano, and today we’ve hired a private guide to take hiking to see this natural phenomenon. Together, Mandy and I have been in a 6.1 earthquake, driven 114 MPH from Glacier to Yellowstone, seen the tulips in bloom in Amsterdam, and swam alone in the Blue Grotto, but even for us this is an exciting bucket-list kinda day.
We meet Thalis, our guide, around 10am in Grindavik and ride
in his big 4WD Mercedes van to the start of the hike. He is a wealth of information, not just about
todays hike, but about the entire country. It’s the best reason we’ve found to hook up
with a local guide early in any adventure trip.
It’s a moderate 45-minute hike with a 1000 ft elevation to the top of
the mountain with the best vantage point of the eruption. It’s cloudy, 50 and windy as we start up the
trail. 15 minutes in, on one of the
steeper inclines, it starts to rain. The
rain turns into RAIN, big cold drops stinging our exposed faces. Then the noise against our hoods changes and
the trail turns white as we’re pelted by hail for a solid 5 minutes. Oh, Iceland summer, what a bee-atch.
We reach the edge of the first lava field. It looks like a 10 foot tall wall of warm
black crystal and makes a constant sound of crushing glass. This lava is about two weeks old. The crust is cool enough to touch, but in the
open gaps under, the molten rock still glows bright red. Thalis explains that this lava is actually hundreds
of feet thick and is steadily filling what was a deep valley just a few weeks ago. We are taken aback by the sheer scale of the transformation.
The volcano is spewing about 10 cubic
meters of lava every second, that is, spitting molten rock the size of a cement
truck every second and has been since March 8th. If you can imagine dropping a cement mixer into
a valley every single second for 83 days, you can imagine how full it would get. And volcanologists (yes, that’s a real field
you can make money at) believe this eruption will go on for years. It will profoundly change the landscape for
miles around, creating new mountains in it’s wake.
We push the last 15 minutes up the steepest part of the trail to the main event. The rain on the hot lava has caused a massive steam cloud, swirling like the ocean in the unpredictable air currents. Just as we think today may be a bust, the skys clear, the steam dissipates, and the bright red molten lava stream reveals itself. It’s pouring out of the top of the crater like a pitcher overflowing under the kitchen faucet, finding the lowest point in the spout to escape. Today, the lava drops about 100 feet, splashes up 30 feet then drops another 100 feet until it’s out of site. It’s a magnificent site, demonstrating the raw power of the earth. We can’t take enough pictures, shoot enough video, or bond with enough fellow trekkers. There’s about 150 other people up here with us and it’s better being a shared experience with travelers from around the globe. Time to go, we are we hike back to the van discussing our experience like reliving a championship win play-by-play.
Back at our hotel, we’re in need of a pick-me-up. Fortunately, our hotel is adjacent to Sandholt, the best bakery and café in the country. Somehow the thick cappuccino is conducive to a nice nap, and we sleep soundly for a few hours. Happy and rested we head out to dinner. Destination Hlemmur Matholl, Reykjavik’s original foodies food hall. Hip and casual, it’s all about the food here, fine-dining with none of the pretense of fine-dining. Specifically, we’re headed to Skal!, a farm-to-table with amazing reviews. They absolutely live up to their press, starting us with beautifully crafted cocktails at their 24 seat bar/restaurant. We’re seated in front of the chef and watch him carefully create dish after dish expertly preparing and plating each. Our Artic Char is the freshest we have ever eaten and their twist on in-front-of-you-made gnocchi starts with local rye flour. We’ve eaten light and bounce up the street for our final course at Old Iceland, one of the town’s classic eateries in a cozy ground floor space. The dish to get here is the shellfish soup, their well-honed version of the Icelandic classic. It’s the perfect last bite. It’s almost 10pm, but this is the land of the midnight sun, so it looks like mid-day outside. Needing to walk off a few calories, we wander the dozen blocks to Hallgrimskirkja, the massive 250’ high monolith of a church that dominates the city’s skyline. It’s stunning in its unique architectural style and pure scale. Running out of steam, we hoof it to the hotel and add this day to the record books.
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