Laugavegur Iceland · 2024
Landmannalaugar · Hrafntinnusker · Hvanngil · Emstrur · Þórsmörk · 55 km / 34 mi
September 22, 2024
Through Rivers onto Mars to the End: Laugavegur II.
Tomorrow: From 12 noon heavy rain with storm, reads a handwritten sign in the window of the hiker's hut.
Long-distance trekking in heavy rain stinks and can only be surpassed in yuckiness by pitching a tent in heavy rain. We are on Iceland's Laugavegur, 34 miles and four days through indescribably beautiful highland landscapes with green volcanoes, snowfields, and raging rivers.
Heavy rain and storms. On this third day we must cross a large river on foot, which is already making our skin crawl. “Then we'll be wet all over,” I joke, remembering a warning we had read about swelling rivers when it rains.
Luckily, we also remember that it hardly gets dark at night in Iceland during July.
“Why don't we get up early and try to finish this leg before it rains at noon and set up the tent while it is still dry?” I suggest.
The alarm goes off at 4:30 am. That’s 4:30 in the morning. Four dark thirty.
A river, a lunar landscape—and the destination in sight.
September 15, 2024
From Rainbow Mountains to Glacier Gaps: Laugavegur 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.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, 17th century landscape painter.
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.