Wild Country Found

I take a step, I breathe. I take a step, I breathe. I take ten steps and I allow myself a micro break while my legs scream and I wonder how much longer this climb will go on. Meanwhile, Keith is mercifully patient standing on the climb above me.

In the afternoon the clouds blow in and the same fine drizzle that has been so indicative of Iceland begins to fall.

Sometimes, dear reader, it’s just a sufferfest. And nine miles that somehow manages to take seven hours certainly qualifies as a sufferfest. But I make it to the hut where we are spending the night with the knowledge that tomorrow we will walk to the coast. This project, as misshapen as it has become, is almost over.

I wake early and am treated to a stupendous sunrise. Gentle bruises bloom across the sky underlined with softest pinks and yellows. The sky beneath the clouds a blanket of evolving blue on which the sun paints its colors. I sit in my bag for a long while and watch as the sky comes alive around me even as my fellow campers stay snuggled in their tents. 

Soon Keith wakes and shortly after we are working our way down the trail. When we chose to take another zero before the start of our southern section of this hike it was with the knowledge that we would need to do bigger miles with greater elevation again each day in order to avoid the next storm rolling in in just a few days.

Each uphill becomes a matter of numbers: gain, distance, steps. I count my steps one through 50 and then allow myself a small rest. One through 50 and then another small rest. My legs are trashed from our big mileage, big elevation gain day yesterday but as is one of my favorite things about backpacking the only out most often is through. And so I keep stepping, keep counting, each uphill a task, each downhill or even flat stretch a blessed relief.

Still, I am proud of myself for being out here doing the thing. At the beginning of the summer on the Kungsleden I struggled to get even 10 mile days on relatively flat terrain. Today I am managing 17-20 mile days with 2,000+ feet of elevation gain. I am doing the thing and even if it is slow I am managing one step in front of the other.

That night when we roll into camp it is on legs burning with fatigue and a lightness in my heart.

Only two days until we reach the southern coast. 

A friend once asked me what my favorite emotion is. A question so personal I felt almost naked in reply. Delight, I told him. My favorite emotion is delight. Surprise mixed with elation. Thrill. An uncontrollable grin. The perfect venn diagram of wonder and novelty. Delight. And this part of Iceland, dear readers, delights. Inside my chest it swells to bursting as the snow-covered vista expands around me. Capped in all directions by volcanic mountains, the southern region of our hike does not fail to impress.

In ripples delicate as draped satin the land undulates endless little drainages for us to descend into and then immediately climb back out of again again again. The snowscape of the afternoon is a contrast to the morning’s black-capped ocher hills and sulfur vents. The belching volcanic valley winding narrowly before depositing us atop a plane of blinding snow. In the afternoon the snow begins to melt, draining beneath itself and slickening the mud below and turning all of our numerous little descents from steps to slides. Several times Keith ends up on his butt, and through nothing short of miracles I manage to keep my feet.

Spurred on by the good weather and views, I feel strong. Tackling the same mileage as we were doing a week ago but with far more elevation gain, my body feels capable of whatever it is I may ask of it. A sensation both foreign and welcome. 

And beyond my delight I am grateful that the weather window we are relying on has manifest and that the last 60 miles of the hike will be under blue skies and without the infectious rain and snow we have been dealing with until now. With each step under blue sky the sadness of our skipped miles lessens and I accept the reality of big dreams: sometimes they experience setbacks, sometimes they get derailed, but that is hardly a reason not to dream big in the first place. I always wondered what Iceland held in her interior and while I won’t get to see all of it I’m enamored with what I do get to see. 

At night we camp under clear skies amid volcanic rings of rock. Overhead geese honk their way south. Their every cry a confirmation that winter is coming to this land.

Zero day at Landmannalaugar hut,  no miles hiked

The sun has barely risen when the tent threatens to collapse onto my face and I am roused out of a fitful sleep. The wind has risen from blustery to brutal over the course of the night and the morning finds Keith and myself panic packing up our tent and rushing into the shelter next to Landmannalaugar hut in hopes of finding shelter while we plan out our day. According to the ranger we flag down this morning, the pass that we were supposed to climb over today got more than a foot of snow and even stronger winds than we are experiencing down in the valley. Which means–can you guess it dear reader?–yes, it means we’re taking another zero in a hut to wait out the weather. I am frustratingly resigned, after all, when you are as small as a human it takes a great deal of hubris to get angry at the weather; as if you can change it through your feelings alone.

As I sit in the bunkroom and attempt to doze away the day I am reminded of something that my buddy Riley told me. Which is that if I wanted a sure bet of a hike there are any number of trails that I could spend a few weeks exploring. But when we move to bigger, more complex projects things have the chance of falling apart and that is what makes them exciting, what draws us to them.

When I set out to walk across Iceland I found almost no information online. When I sat down to map out a route and water sources it was with the knowledge that things might change in the field and that I’d have to adapt. But somehow, in my occasional optimism I didn’t factor the weather as such a constant barrier and now here it is, showing up to teach me a lesson in adaptability.

I spend the rest of the day in the warm bunk room trying not to eat all my snacks and waiting for tomorrow when we hike on. Probably.

Nero at Nyiadalur hut, 2 miles hiked

“Are you ready to go, Wyoming?” the ranger asks, having since forgotten our names and thus calling both Keith and myself as the collective Wyoming. We nod and bid goodbye to our new group of friends and fellow adventurers before following her out to the truck.

As we trundle our way south the weather begins to dissipate, snow and rain dematerializing into high wispy clouds and even the occasional break of blue sky. Beneath the truck’s tires crunch a volcanic moon-scape of barren gray. While inside the cab my uncertainty coalesces into longing for the miles we are missing, even while I know we are making a good choice and that these little patches of blue sky are nothing but a tease. Still, my heart breaks a little as the miles whizz by.

Soon, however, we are at the junction that will take us to the Landmannalauger hut, piling out of the rangers truck and we start to walk as her tires crunch away behind us and a cry of “bye, Wyoming!” bids us forward. 

We walk for an hour as cars trundle and grumble past on the bumpy dirt road. Finally a french cabinet maker in his work van slows to pick us up and then drives slower than snowmelt to get us to the hut where we will camp in a field with the other hikers. Tomorrow we will set out on foot again.

Zero day at Nyidalur hut, no hiking

I stare down at the swirling box on Keith’s phone, watching the weather forecast write our fate in greens and purples, snow and rain and wind. Keith has a plan and as much as I dislike it I can see the logic in it. He proposes that we skip the next 60 miles of the hike and hitch down to Landmannalaugar hut. The logic being that if the season really is shutting down and we only have a few days of good weather left for us, we might as well skip to the southern portion of the trip which is supposed to be the most beautiful. Still, I so badly wanted to thru hike across Iceland that I am resentful of this new idea even though I ultimately relent.

The weather swells in menacing whorls, the wind slamming the building like a freight train, working its tendrils through the cracks in the walls like so many dozens of mice.

Out from the cold, soaked and snow-dusted come fellow hikers who have either walked here or else been collected by the ranger of the hut, all making the wise decision to flee the oncoming storm. They drape their wet gear around the bunkroom, warming hands and feet by the gas heater and we get to exchanging stories. Stories of waking and walking in the rain, stories of heavy bags and tents that collapse on you in the middle of the night, but also stories of far-flung adventures and dreams. I find that these are the people who share the same heart as I have inside my mammalian chest. One which beats in longing for the new and novel. And isn’t this new and novel, to see what is in the interior of Iceland and the people who, like me, wish to see it? Even with the disappointment of missed miles I am still walking Iceland. Still placing one foot in front of the other and seeing where it takes me.

“I’m going to invoke the right of first refusal today” Keith says, “if a car comes by either of us is allowed to decide that we are hitching to the next hut.”

“Okay,” I agree, staring ahead at the wall of white and wind.

In a quiet moment I chance a look towards Keith only to be served with a scene of pure misery; hands tucked into armpits, walking bent over against the cold, steps cut short by a night spent in a wet tent without enough water. Though, perhaps the scene which greets me is more like a mirror, my own morale running low. The weather is unlikely to lift today meaning we can look forward to another day spent hiking through a cloud, barely able to lift our faces due to the wind and rain. This hike, at least today, is drifting into type 3 fun in which the experience is only fun told in distant retrospect.

When I hear a car approaching from the rear I feel my heart soar. The sudden excitement reveals to me how over this I am and my mind is made up. We’re going to hitch into the next hut where we can spend the day drying out and planning our next move. I spin on my heels and jut my thumb out while attempting to portray some level of enthusiasm and trustworthiness through my damp visage.

When the car rolls to a stop I can see that it is filled with the most enthusiastic and delightful group of Korean tourists and who seem to be as excited to give us a ride as I am thrilled to be hitching with them. Within a minute of being in the car they bestow us with candy and we make conversation in broken English. They are amazed that we have hiked all this way from Akureyri in this weather, calling us hardcore with big smiles. They are gracious in every way. Out the window they smile and point, delighted by everything their tour guide points out to them. When the car arrives at the Nyidalur hut  we all pile out at once and share one more round of goodbyes and thank yous before moving into the hut and going about our own lives, each a background character in the lives of the others.

A drizzle of snow tumbles from the sky amid weak sunlight and blundering clouds as we leave Laugafell Hut behind us and plod the road southbound. At least, I am plodding. Our zero yesterday, though sedate, didn’t feel especially restful and I am a little resentful of being coaxed from the warmth and into motion. After a few hours of plodding my energy returns and I can even find fun in the puzzle of rock-hopping across rivers without getting my feet wet. A puzzle that neither Keith nor myself fully manage.

The weather continues to degrade throughout the day, and what little service we were able to gather yesterday revealed more bad weather on the way. Not just the kind of bad weather that’s unpleasant to be out in, but the sort that’s dangerous. Unfortunately we have neither the food or funds to just wait it out. The season is ending, flights are booked, and sitting around at another backcountry hut wouldn’t provide any assurance that the weather would improve any time soon.

As I sit shivering in camp too cold to gather water to cook dinner properly something about this trip feels like it is ending. A feeling made all the more ominous by the press of drizzling, shivering, silencing clouds which descended upon us in the last hour of hiking. I realize now that the weather in Iceland is going to be like its own character, no longer weather but Weather. A character standing in defiant opposition to the expectations that I had for this trip. Expectations that Weather is making known were unrealistic.

This has been a cold and wet summer, so many people have told us so. And apparently mid-August is far closer to winter in this part of the world than in other regions I have traveled to. As I shiver my way to sleep I can hear Weather outside our tent lashing and rending the wind across the moon-scape terrain. I guess, I think, that that’s the heartbreak of big projects and novel dreams, sometimes they don’t work out.

Zero day at Laugafell Hut, no miles hiked.

The wind roars and the building jolts as though pushed by some cosmic hand. Even from inside the wind feels powerful. A freight train perpetually barreling down upon and crashing into us with ceaseless energy. 

When Keith I arrived at the Laugafell hut last night we were told by the warden on duty that snow and high winds were in the forecast for today; the final sodden straw we needed to be convinced to take a zero indoors. We were established in a small cabin and set to watching the weather blow itself into a storm. In the morning there was snow on the ground.

We spend the day just the two of us doing a dozen tiny things for every hour of waiting and watching the wilds out the window. We sleep late and enjoy a casual breakfast without the need to hurry to pack the tent away. I pad around on feet puffy and swollen from so many continuous hours of being wet. Keith makes tea only to forget about it and drink it cold like he always does. We hold our phones to the window in order to coax what little cell service can be wrung from the air. 

In the afternoon Keith finds a list of ranger programs that run from July to August 15th. Today is August 19th and listening to the howl of the wind I wonder if the summer season really is over and that we might be facing a whole lot more of this weather. When we spoke to the ranger last night she told us that snow is uncommon this time of year, and then in a tone which may or may not have been Icelandic joking, that August is almost winter in the highlands. I worry in a useless circle about the weather until bored with myself it is time to make lunch and go back to staring out the window. We’ll just have to see what the highlands hold for us.

I pray to the potato chip gods above as I shove another handful of chips into my mouth. Trying, hoping really, that I can calorically jar my legs back into functioning and allow me to finish this climb from the verdant Icelandic lowlands up to the barren highlands.

When I planned out the mileage for this hike I knew that 15 mile days was at the upper end of my physical fitness and now, four days in, the fatigue in my legs is well on its way to making itself known. But beneath that soreness is one of the things that I love specifically about backpacking.  That so often the only way out is through. Whereas a bad day at the gym can easily be cut short, having a trail-side meltdown doesn’t get you any closer to being back at your car. Or, as is my present situation, to the southern coast of Iceland. In fact, if I were to bail on this project right now I’d still need to hike 45 miles back to Akureyri. And then I’d still be on the wrong side of the country for my flight home next month. It’s neither a practical option nor one I am close to considering. No, what I need are potato chips, a protein bar, and some water before I pull up my big person hiker pants and get to huffing it up this hill.

My calves burn, my hamstrings ache, and I continue walking uphill, forever onward. I am a small ant crawling across the great face of this planet, eyes on the ground, counting my little ant steps. Then, seemingly all at once the riotously green valley I have hiked through over the last two days vanishes into a monochromatic moonscape. There is literally nothing but rocks and dirt and low-slung clouds as far as the eye can see.

Then, comes the wind.

Rolling across the ground, silent without trees or even grass to break its path. Pushing into me in great gusts of flung sand. And somehow, despite the vastness, the world shrinks in on itself. To a dark undulating moon-scape capped with low flat clouds. Across and beneath I tread on my little patch of earth. My feet hurt, and my legs are tired, but I have committed myself to finding my way across this country which has captivated me for years. So I keep walking; after all, the only way out is through.