The Myrdalsjokull Glacier Hike

quartet on glacier We hiked up to the Myrdalsjokull glacier. kaaren and me glacier vik The weather kept changing drastically during our hike. One minute it would be sunny and the next freezing and raining like in this photo with my sister. All along the way we saw these streams running down from the sides of the mountains. In some places there were so many they made a loud rushing sound. Of course Dave as usual was way ahead of the rest of us….. and was the first to reach the sign that said we shouldn’t proceed any further without proper ice hiking equipment. Since everyone else seemed to be ignoring the sign we did too and kept walking closer to the glacier. My intrepid brother-in-law Ken climbed a little further and higher than the rest of us.When we got up right close to the glacier the sun came out.And Ken and Dave hammed it up a bit for the photographer. This fellow hiker lived in Columbia for most of her life but now resides in Florida. Here she is telling Ken and Dave about the effects of the recent hurricane in her home city of Fort Lauderdale. She offered to take group photos of us. Myrdalsjokull is Iceland’s fourth largest glacier covering nearly 600 square kilometers. It is on top of the volcano Katla which erupts every 40-80 years. The last eruption was in 1918. Apparently at places the ice on this glacier is hundreds of metres thick. On our drive home from the glacier we stopped at another lookout point to see the iconic local landform nicknamed The Three Trolls. Can you see the faint rainbow off to the left? rainbow near vik iceland Although the constant switch of the weather from cold and rainy to sunny and warmer all day wasn’t convenient it did create many beautiful rainbowsand some lovely light effects over the ocean. sun over the ocean We’ve only been in Iceland a couple days but I’m beginning to believe what writer Stephen Markley said is true……. “The problem with driving around in Iceland is that you’re basically confronted by a new soul-enriching, breath-taking, life-affirming natural sight every five minutes. It’s totally exhausting.”