The Iceland Traverse - Day 4
I felt better this morning. Much more positive. Getting up and packing away was a breeze. The doubts had gone and I felt ready to hit the trail. Little did we know this would be the best day on trail, BY FAR!
We took the short trail back down the side of the canyon and started along the top of the cliffs. We started early today, feeling good and hiking well by 6am. The canyon got deeper and deeper, more and more dramatic like some scene out of Jurassic Park. Waterfalls lining the sides of the canyon and a violent raging river and the bottom. Pictures never do thing justice but with this, you really don’t get the scale in photos!
The weather soon broke into a cold rain but with these views that didn’t matter. From England we are pretty used to the wet weather! We found the alternate trail we were looking for that would take us down into the canyon. It came with a warning about exposure and for those with heavy packs to take care.
We started down the trail which opened up to even better views of the valley below. The rain had subsided as we picked our way over rocks and through scrub towards the bottom. There was little exposure and small sections of scrambling down over and around rocks. It was a really enjoyable trail as what had come before was straight forward and I must admit, a bit monotonous. We scrambled down the last of the basalt ledges to the bottom of the canyon and walked out towards the river. One last obstacle. The trail had been taken out by rockfall so we had to clamber along over fallen rocks and debris to get to the remaining trail the other side. We reached a pool where spring water from the canyon side reached the silty glacial melt water of the river. It made for quite a beautiful contrast where the waters met.
The view back up the canyon was as good as looking back down and Hafragilsfoss came into view. The raging waterfall was an awesome site and you could really feel the power of the water flying over the cliff.
From here we climbed back up the other side of the canyons. Queues of people were coming down holding onto the fixed rope as they scrambled down the rock face. Once they had passed we started up. A short steep ascent to the bottom of the rope then a quick haul and a few steps and we were at the top. Across rocky lava fields that bought us up to Dettifoss. The largest waterfall by water volume in the world. Yes it’s as impressive as it sounds. There is a big busy viewing platform that doesn’t allow you to get so close but still see it very well. However, I much preferred Hafragilsfoss. Maybe for its surrounding beauty or maybe getting close allows you to feel its power.
We stopped at a hotdog stand on the car park, consumed the worst hot dog I have ever had in my life then road walked out of the Dettifoss area and headed south on the 862. Just a few miles down we turned west across open sand that flowed into low scrubland. We hiked around fields of sheep towards a large looming volcano.
We arrived in an old dry riverbed, out of the wind and dropped our bags as we headed off to the lake for water. It was hard to collect as it was so shallow and sandy. We continued up the river bed. The beautiful sandy bars and golden sun behind us made me feel so good that afternoon. We soon found a flat spot upstream in the old riverbed. Setting up camp and having dinner under the volcano was quite a sight. We sat and admired it basking in the sun, doing our best to extract every little bit of heat from it. We went to bed with the tent all opened up to keep it cool and to enjoy the view for a little longer. I’m not happy with our choice of tent, but that’s for another time. I miss the X-mid!
