Iceland Glacier Hike

 

Lava rocks, carried by melting ice and deposited here, in the almost unpronounceable town of  · Kirkjubæjarklaustur, Iceland. We’re still on Planet Earth but from some of these landscapes you might not think so! (Plus, my Colorado hindbrain keeps insisting that if we’re in tundra with no trees we must be above 11,000 feet altitude and be careful the atmosphere is thin here. I don’t remember the numbers but it’s something like for every thousand feet of elevation it’s 10 degrees of latitude for climate.) 

I’m calling it a “zebra” iceberg. The alternate layers of black and white came about because the volcano spewed out black ash, then it snowed on top, then it spewed again, then it snowed, etc. The layers were horizontal originally but then it broke off and floated downstream on the spring melt until it fetched up here.

I’m gonna need a longer bucket list… glacier hike, check! (And one with our guide, the knowledgeable—and patient!—Elena)

We traded photo ops with another pair of visitors to Skogafoss waterfall. 

Last night at the hotel just after we’d gone to bed we heard some things falling and rattling. My first thought was mice, which was surprising because the place was otherwise immaculately clean. Nope, it was a small earthquake! Here’s a pic of the wall in the lobby showing layers from previous eruptions.