The Iceland Traverse - Day8/9
We woke after a blissful night inside the hut to some not so blissful weather outside. The wind was blowing harder than ever. Sand was flying and creeping its way in through the cracks in the windows. We fired up the inReach and requested a weather update for the next few days. Today we were set to climb up though the mountains and over Askja volcano which would be fairly brutal in this wind. Visibility was also extremely poor. We sat talking about our options waiting for the weather report to come back with the forecast for the next few days.
The Garmin pinged and we looked at our next 3 to 4 days positions. Oh dear. Today - 70kph winds, tomorrow - 93kph winds, the day after 98kph winds. No shelter, no huts, big days in a big sandy dessert. We talked it over and made the harsh and frankly horrible decision to turn around. 90 to 100kph wind is just not safe without shelter. The wind blowing in our face with severe sand storms as well. If we had the time we could go to Askja today and wait out the weather. But that would mean we would have to miss the Laugavegur trail. Most probabaly the highlight of the traverse. It was a harsh decision and maybe we made the wrong one, but it just didn't feel safe. We are happy to take risks and endure punishing conditions but zero visibility and dangerous camping conditions lead us to this.
We spoke with our new found friend and said we were heading back to Myvatn. He agreed to join us for the 2 days back. We set out back the way we came. I was frustrated. I felt like we had failed and were quitting. Had we made the right decision? I have always said that turning around, pulling out, or skipping parts of a trail, or any adventure for that matter, for safety reasons, is never the wrong decision. But at that point, it's very hard to see it like that. We chatted to our friend as we hiked. Everything from politics to the world cup and hiking.
We followed the river down to Botni shelter. It was where we had originally planned to stay the night but had made it by 3pm. We sat for a while and had a snack. A park ranger appeared to check the shelter and to stop on her way into the highlands. We spoke for a while and told her of our decision. "Correct choice," she said. Apparently, this weather, and the increasingly poor weather forecast, is out of the ordinary even for Iceland. "You wont want to be out here without a roof over your head. I will be staying in the hut and advising anyone out here to stay undercover until this weather passes." Well that made me feel a little better.
The three of us continued on until another hut came into view. It was about 500m past our turning away from the river and not on any map we could see. We hiked up to it and it presented as two narrow flimsy white cabins standing on opposite sides of an old deck. We checked inside. It was messy. Old rags and camping gear were lying all over the place. The mattresses on the bunkbeds were mouldy and covered in stains of goodness knows what. We opted to camp outside as the wind had significantly dropped (what a surprise!).
The next morning we continued towards Myvatn, crossing the river where we had camped just a few days before. After this, the forecast wind arrived with such a force it was hard to stay upright. Sand flew past us far thicker than we had seen before. But thankfully it was to our back. We trudged in through it, quickly huddling behind a rock for lunch. It did nothing. We shoved down our lunch a carried on again. Soon we hit the tarmac back at the farm and carried on up towards the main road.
We got a ride in to Myvatn quite quickly and went straight to the local campsite. We set up and had a warm shower trying to shift as much of the sand as possible. Well, nothing to do but eat I suppose. Back to Myvatn fish and chips and again, we were not disappointed. The three of us hiked down to the local bar that was allegedly showing some of the world cup. We sat over a pint and watched England's miserable performance against Argentina. Maybe in 2030!
