Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus). Hornstrandir, Iceland.
At 2:30 in the morning, our plane is just landing at Keflavik International Airport in Iceland. My wife Stephanie and I are coming off nearly five weeks of our European vacation (See Part I and Part II here) and we are severely jet lagged. We know Iceland is just south of the arctic circle with a summer sun that never fully sets, but we were still surprised to raise the shade in our row and see a sky of red, pink, and purple. Welcome to the land of fire and ice!
Fiords, Mountains and Skies of Iceland.
Iceland’s wild landscapes, twenty-four-hour sunlight, cliffs, volcanoes and fiords certainly remind you of the land of the Targaryen, Starks and Lannister (and George Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”) as you drive the country’s dramatic roads.
Icelandic Sun!
Our European trip was definitely three separate vacations. While we loved every place we visited and each leg of our journey, they were as different as night and day. History and culture everywhere, but hot and crowded in Italy and Greece, warm breezes off the ocean in Portugal, Spain and France, and forty-degrees and with its usual high winds in Iceland. For most travel, I bring a carry-on duffle and a small backpack, and I thought I’d just need a few pairs of shorts and t-shirts for summer in Europe. But Iceland really loaded us up with down jackets, rain gear, hiking poles and boots, gloves, and hats. One extra roller bag that mostly sat in a locker until we landed in Reykjavik.
Eurasian Oystercatcher & Redshanks! Iceland.
It is impossible to pick a favorite destination, but the general lack of people in Iceland (especially in the Westfjords) is more my cup of tea. Iceland is the European region’s most sparsely populated area and the estimated entire population is just over three-hundred-seventy-five thousand (ten people per mile and equivalent to zero percent of the total world population), and I would swear there were that many people just in Rome’s Colosseum or the Acropolis in Athens while we were there! For another reference, over one-hundred-twenty million watched the last Superbowl Feb 12, 2024.
Westfiords! Iceland.
As for the land of fire and ice, the ‘fire’ comes from Iceland’s thirty active volcano systems and the ‘ice’ comes from its two-hundred-sixty-nine glaciers that cover roughly eleven percent of the country.
As we landed at that early hour, the Svartsengi volcanic system had been going off since December near the small town of Grindavík (it has erupted five times now, with another eruption expected in the next few days), just about eighteen miles from the airport. Fortunately for local residents, lava flows were not visible to us either landing or from the tarmac. Most roads in the area were closed (or no longer existed) and local towns were in danger of being evacuated so we stayed out of the area.
Kirkjufell (Church Mtn). Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland.
Of Iceland’s many glaciers, the best known is Vatnajökull, which is Europe’s largest glacier and, in fact, this glacier is larger than all of Europe’s other glaciers combined. Many of these glaciers sit on top of the volcanoes (mountain top glaciers), which is why Iceland is estimated to have more than ten thousand waterfalls and fifty-five rivers, all short and ending in waterfalls and rapids. In late June, the snow is mostly gone, but the water is flowing everywhere!
On our first trip to Iceland in 2019, it was winter and the days were much shorter (still super windy). You got to sleep in and drive to your destination in the dark, and then had about four hours before the dark took over once more. We spent our limited time in the south, driving on ice and visiting as far east as Höfn, and stopping by Jökulsárlón (think black sand and ice) and Skaftafell and Vatnajökull National Parks.
Land of Fire & Ice!
For this trip, we headed in the opposite direction to the most remote part of Iceland’s northwestern corner, right on the border with the Arctic Circle in the Westfjords.
The drive from Reykjavik to the Westfjords is amazing as you wind endlessly along the coastlines, up and over mountains, and as you gaze out across the many, many fiords. As you crest every pass (sheep and lupine everywhere), your breath is taken away by the beauty and vastness before you. Guidebooks say this drive takes about five hours, but with our stopping to take pictures and to just drink in the scenery, it took us well over ten. In truth, ten hours in the car with my wife, surrounded by the beauty of the Westfjords is just quality time and I could do that forever!
We established base camp (rented a room) in Ísafjörður and immediately crashed after such a long day. In the morning, we headed by boat to an even more isolated location up on the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. In the 1950’s, everyone left the Hornstrandir Peninsula due to its extreme remoteness. Today, very few if any people live there full time. It is really the home to seabirds (including puffins) seals, whales, sea eagles (the rare appearance of a polar bear when one floats over on an iceberg from Greenland), and Iceland’s only native mammal, the arctic fox. Puffins and fox, this is why we came to Iceland. In Part II of this report (and often before), I talk about “end-of -road” experiences. Well, Hornstrandir has an “end-of-world” feel and is described as Europe’s last wilderness.
Arctic Fox 2. Hornstrandir, Iceland.
As with taking photos of bears in Asturias Spain, not having all of my camera equipment (too many bags already) was a problem. Luckily, the fox was closer than the bears and I was able to get a few decent images, and sitting in the tall grass, watching mom and four babies playing outside their den was a truly wonderful day. A typical photography day as well. Good sun, warm weather, long lenses, and happy photographers. After watching for hours, it was time to go back to the boat and we all started putting our camera gear away. As soon as it was away, another fox came around the bend, maybe ten feet away. Who was more surprised? Everyone dropped their packs and scrambled to dig out the cameras while the fox high tailed it outta there! Quite sure no one got that image.
Altantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica or Lundi in Iceland). Latrabjarg Cliffs, Iceland.
The next morning, we headed out early to the ocean cliffs on the Látrabjarg Peninsula to see puffins, razorbills, and guillemots. It was, and was forecast to be, a rainy, foggy, and windy day, and we didn’t know what we would see. Well, as always, weather makes for great photos and the dark skies, rainbows and early morning fog were exceptional. So was the wind along the cliffs, but the birdlife was having a blast flinging themselves off their nests and soaring out along the coast and among the rocks. We were careful not to get too close and find the wind flinging us out to sea as well. We learned that early in the day, when windy, puffins stay close to the land and don’t venture as far out to sea. That was great for photographing puffins and made up (a bit) for the far away bears and foxes on our trip.
Puffin 2. Iceland.
As our time in Iceland wound down, we decided to take the ferry over to the Snaefellsnes peninsula to avoid going back the same roads. That was a shorter path, and maybe just less dramatic and awe-inspiring as the Westfjords. But certainly, it was a wonderful trip.
Wild Horses! Iceland.
Sitting in the grass in Hornstrandir, and then again on our last night in Bifröst, before heading back to the airport, I looked at Stephanie and said “I really don’t want to go home. How long could we stay if we used our money just to travel?”
Unfortunately, the answer was not long enough.
Endnotes:
· Iceland was a major filming location for Game of Thrones. The glaciers of Myrdalsjokull and Vatnajökull were used for scenes Beyond the Wall, as was the Hverfjall volcano. The frozen locations were used to portray the Fist of the First Men and the Frostfangs featured in season two. Jon Snow and Ygritte's romantic encounter during season four took place in a Grjótagjá lava cave, and when Daenerys helped fight the Night King and his army of wights in season seven, the conflict occurred in the Icelandic mountain and waterfall in Kirkjufell.
· Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
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