Wednesday, August 3
Iceland is a deeply moving place, a place that made us reexamine our relationship with nature. As Sue aptly said, the distance could not be greater to a place like Chianti, where, as Fernand Braudel long ago noted, humans and nature have found a harmonious balance. Humans carve out a somewhat tenuous existence in Iceland, as volcanos, glacial floods, and the weather near the Arctic Circle does its work.
In speaking to former visitors, we realize that not everyone has this experience. I think part of the difference lies in the areas one visits: Western Iceland is tamer, more civilized than the Far East and northeast. But probably the biggest difference is time spent in the highlands. Iceland’s interior is hard to visit, accessed only through roads so rough that only the truly obsessed would venture onto them. We weren’t finally able to visit Thorsmörk, a natural area ringed by three glaciers; and on our return we would like to visit Askya, a remote, enormous caldera in east central Iceland. We’re already plotting our next visit, but this time we’ll rent a camper. The ability to move around without reservations ought to be a good antidote to the weather patterns.
This wouldn’t be my blog without a word about gear! We felt very prepared for whatever the weather threw at us. Anyone who plans to go more than 20 feet off a paved road needs:
— A bombproof rain shell. And I mean bombproof.
— Rain pants, preferably waterproof / breathable. We have rain pants from the now defunct cottage equipment manufacturer GoLite, and they’v served us well for 15 years.
— Waterproof (trail) shoes. I’ll put in a plug for the Hoka One One Speedboat GTX that both of us wore: extremely comfortable, totally watertight, and very grippy on rock, even when it’s wet.
— We were both very comfortable in merino base layers; when it was chilly we threw on a light down puffy.
Thanks for reading!