From Rainbow Mountains to Glacier Gaps: Hiking Laugavegur Iceland I.

The tent fabric flutters quietly behind the stone circle. In front of us lies a wide, rugged valley of brown volcanic rock intermittently covered with white snowfields. The air around us is crystal clear, the sky above appears as a silky blue tablecloth upon which a glass of orange juice has been spilled.

It's after 10 p.m. and dusk creeps uncertainly around the mountain peaks, even though it knows it's July in Iceland in and night doesn't really stand a chance.

We are on our way along Laugavegur—one of the most beautiful multi-day hiking trails in the world. Four days and 34 miles through Iceland's highlands. Past rainbow mountains and steaming springs, along high paths carved onto mountain ridges, through waist-high, ice-cold rivers, and around green volcanoes that look as surreal as if they had been created by a wizened, 17^th century landscape painter.

There are no hotels or restaurants—just four primitive huts and campsites nestled between lava rocks and mountain slopes. We carry everything we will need on our backs: Tent, sleeping bag, warm clothes (it doesn't get warmer than 54°F here even in summer), water, and 12 meals per person—previously dehydrated and now stored in small, lightweight bags.

Four days through harsh country that is too beautiful, too wild, and too incredible to put into pictures or words. I try anyway. Magic on every mile—this report is not a trail guide; this is a poem. Part one.

Our shuttle bus takes four hours to travel from Iceland's capital Reykjavik to the starting point of the trail in Landmannalaugar. Land-manna-laugar, look forward to similar names for the other places. It's Iceland, it's all Hranðragfladafjordurgrrrrrrr!

Landmannalaugar is not a town, but a kind of base camp with basic toilets, showers, and a few huts. There's also a snack store where, if you're lucky, you can buy another gas cartridge for the price of a small car if you were too lazy to plan ahead and secure all of your survival gear.

From here, the first stage of Laugavegur is 7.5 miles, ending in Hrafntinnusker (I warned you!).

“Here we go!” I shout euphorically, and a bit nervously, as I adjust my 22-pound backpack. Then, as if on an unseen cue, it starts to rain. I throw on my rain gear and walk about half a mile when the sun begins to beat down. Purple-grey clouds hover over the colorful Rhyolith Mountains. I'm sweating like a pig. But what follows is incredible:

Steep, sandy mountains with red, white, yellow, turquoise, and orange layers fall steeply upward next to the trail. Steam billows out of crevices—fumaroles and hot springs. This is a land that always rumbles, ready to erupt  into fire and reinvent itself with angry, wild energy.

Over yellow mountains with green lakes, we push further and further upward, as the air gets colder and the wind more biting. On one particularly steep section, it feels as if my backpack wants desperately to go back down into the valley. With me or without me, it doesn't care. The weight on my shoulders makes my feet feel like I've poured lead into my shoes. Of course, my boyfriend is already trudging back up the next ridge.

“Where are you?” he calls.

“Falling down the mountain!”

As we top out, the terrain finally begins to flatten. However, I can also see what the altitude and the cold have brought with them: snowfields. The initial groups of hikers at the trailhead have dispersed. We are almost alone. The wind is blowing, and I regret my protest at home about bringing gloves.

“Do you need gloves?” my boyfriend asks, even though we both know we don't have any with us.

“No, not at all,” I grumble as I pull the sleeve of my down jacket over the back of my hand.

Oh, pig puke.

Never mind now.

We are in a silent, icy vastness. Suddenly our colorful world turns monochrome. Hard snow crunches under our shoes, ice crystals sing a serenade in the wind extolling the tales of past and never-ending winters. 60 degrees north latitude.

In snow, you must be wary of unseen snow bridges, under which there can be hollow crevasses or sometimes even raging rivers. Fortunately, there are enough people moving along the Laugavegur to see the footprints where previous hikers have stepped—and not fallen in. Enough people are out here, but not too many.

After passing through several valleys and right through the middle of the warm, wet steam of a hot spring, we reach an area of night-black obsidian. Huge chunks of natural glass lie gleaming in the landscape like the torn remains of a car accident.

My legs are getting heavy. Where is this alleged camp? The cold, the wind, the climbs, and the heavy backpack have drained me. Perhaps the abundance of exuberant beauty experienced during every foot we have walked today has also left me exhausted. At one point, we see the memorial to Ido Keinan—a 25-year-old hiker who died here in a sudden snowstorm in 2004—just before reaching the survival hut. Nature doesn't ask questions, nature simply takes.

We finally reach the Hrafntinnusker campsite situated on an open slope. Shallow stone circles serve as windbreaks. Our first night outside. We add hot water to our self-dehydrated macaroni with tomato sauce, mushrooms and olives—yum!—and look up at the blue sky, which looks as if a glass of orange juice has been dripped on it.

The next morning, the Laugavegur begins with the promise of great views from cliffs along our 10-mile second stage trek from Hrafntinnusker to Hvanngil.

The promise is quickly broken at the fractured edge of the trail on a vertical, muddy wall, almost completely shrouded in the mist. We climb up using our hands and feet. Over and over again, we descend into hollows filled with slippery snow, and then crawl back up again. The view is zero. Our heads and bodies sing of the demise of the land of motivation. We poke through walls of fog and mist for several hours, our faces and hands cold and clammy, and our eyes unfilled with the spectacular landscape we had expected.

Then we finally arrive at the valley of enlightenment: we look over a green plain dotted with volcanic craters that seem to be covered in lush velvet. Down we go as we descend below the cloud layer. Well, my boyfriend takes this descent concept a little too literally and he drops a few feet into the valley on his backside—just to test how volcanic rock affects the palms of his hands. Hmmm—they bleed. Great experiment.

In the valley, we have our first river crossing. Something we both have great respect for. Crossing a river on foot is risky on many levels. Unpredictable depths, rocky edges under water, icy temperatures, strong currents. There are many things you can protect yourself against through close observation (where are standing waves to be seen?), equipment (rubber shoes with closed caps over the toes) and tricks (walking sideways, hooking arms in groups). Nevertheless, many unknown variables remain. Fortunately, for our first crossing there is a rope to hold on to. Nevertheless, the icy water hurts my ankles and legs, and even the rather harmless-looking stream has a strong current as it deepens.

The last portion of this second stage takes us through more green mountains and volcanoes that look like a surreal Windows desktop background created by an overzealous AI. The mountain slopes are too green, the contrast to the black lava under the vegetation too stark. Then there is the neon green grass that grows like an edge that has been drawn with a pencil beside blue rivers, with a massive white glacier looming in the background. I stop a few times and bat my eyelids. This can't be real. The world just does not look so perfect. It's impossible.

And yet it is here. In real life. On the Laugavegur. Again—magic on every mile.

Our second day ends in a sheltered valley snuggled between lava boulders and volcanic sand. Hvanngil. We pitch our tent; it feels like we're on the moon. We feel an absolute peace surrounding us here. There are no cities, no cars, no electricity (you should bring power banks for cell phones and cameras) and no noise. We are here, in the middle of Iceland, and no matter what other beauty may exist on our earth, this is without doubt one of the most magnificent.

The second part of our hiking report is about the last two stages and the yet untrodden 17 miles on Laugavegur—where we encounter heavy rain, storms, two deep rivers, an absolutely Martian landscape, and Iceland's primeval forest - coming soon.

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