Showing posts with label Iceland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iceland. Show all posts
Skógar falls according to legend viking Þrasi Þórólfsson hid his treasure behind the waterfall, and if conditions are just right you can see the gold flickering behind the rushing water. The best we saw was two rainbows. The last couple days spent in Reykjavik we spent exploring the city harbor side playground, dressed like vikings, and ate their infamous hot dogs and chocolate cake.
The swiss must have brought the weather with them, because that was the first day we experienced hail and rain during the mid-day. The hut made the weather bearable, it had a clear roof so we could watch the stormy skies and see the clouds rolling through while enjoying the shelter and hot cocoa.
Turns out the East and Southeast areas of Iceland have the best weather. We enjoyed two days of clear sunny skies. The weather is like clockwork: 06:00 clear sunny skies, 12:00 light sprinkle, 14:00 reach the high (48F) of the day, 20:00/21:00 some clouds start rolling in and the sun starts dropping, 01:00 high winds pick up, 03:00 storm rolls in and rain starts dumping.
With the high winds, rain, and morning sheep call nights aren't always the most peaceful.
It was hard climbing. Everything is basalt rock that rips at your hands, not to mention the strong seaside winds. The F.A. climbers are mainly 6 ft+ Scandinavians who are super strong and powerful. They're used to bouldering and it is evident in their routes. All the routes are under graded, a 5'6=5'7b, 5'9a=5'10c and so forth. It took a few leads to get warmed up, especially since we'd been in a car for so long, but once we got a feel for the rock the climbing was RAD.
We took the mountain RTE 917 to the east coast and followed the fjords. We passed Batman mountain, saw a seaside Viking village in Höfn, climbed on some seaside rock stacks, saw glaciers that stretched to the sea and farms that sat at the base of them, and made it to the main climbing spot Hvannadalshnjúkur.
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