Hiking a Glacier

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ice

The journey took 10 years. When I first left Texas and moved to Washington, DC, I thought I would never be able to withstand the winters here, let alone anything up above the Mason-Dixon. A few years later, I met my future husband - a native of Buffalo, of all places. It was quite nearly a deal breaker.

I learned to enjoy the fluffy white snow on visits to his family - from inside a warm house, a Labatt in hand, and only for a few days at a time. I have never participated in skiing, snowmobiling, snow-tubing, or any other sport that happens when temperatures drop below 40.

So how did I wind up standing on a glacier in Iceland in February?

It started over a year ago, when Justin and I decided to take our next international trip in the winter, when we could take advantage of off-season fares. This, of course, meant we would not be going anywhere with umbrellas in the beverages.

I don't remember how Iceland first made the shortlist. I had heard it was nice, and had thought I'd like to go someday; but we specifically wanted to branch out from North America and Europe, where we'd been on our last few big trips. Even if it weren't technically both of those things, lying right on the rift between tectonic plates, I ruled out the idea of Iceland in February - surely it was unthinkable, the land uninhabitable for tourists.

And then the photos kept popping up on Pinterest, and there were talks of the Northern Lights shining more brightly than ever. And I thought, what's more different than a land of midnight sun (and noontime dark), where Vikings ruled and there is still a firm belief in trolls? The final straw was an excellent Black Friday deal. We booked, we packed warm clothes, we went with a fairly unscheduled agenda and an open mind. We strolled into a tourism office while wandering about the capital the first day, and my dear husband saw a brochure for glacier hikes, and said, "I'd really like to do that." He rarely has any special requests when traveling.

And that is how I found myself standing on a 200 foot thick sheet of ice with only tiny metal spikes on my shoes keeping me from sliding down one of the world's remaining glaciers into an endless crevasse, down to where only trolls could navigate. I guess you could say I did it for love.

We arrived to the tour company's office around 11:30am, plenty early for our noon tour. However, there was a sign saying it was closed until June. Luckily a man popped his head around the building as we were getting into the car to drive up to the glacier, hoping we'd just run into them there, and said that we did indeed need to just drive to the glacier named Sólheimajökull. We went a few more miles up the road and turned onto a gravel road full of potholes - our car was not equipped for this. Justin stayed strong and soon enough we pulled up next to a row of 4x4s, one a van with the same guy we'd just seen (I want to know what shortcut he took) passing out waterproof pants and hiking boots.

We were issued our crampons, metal frames with spikes on them that lace onto the bottom of your boot, like old-fashioned roller skates. These tied onto the shoe with what was essentially a very thick shoelace. This was not comforting to me - that was what would keep me attached to the ice, instead of plummeting to the bottom of a crevasse?

Justin getting his crampons fitted as Sólheimajökull looms in the back

After suiting up, the guides took us over to the edge of the ice and gave a quick overview of what to expect - basically walk up a bit, stop for any interesting sights/geological explanations along the way, stop on a plane about 1.5 hours up, and then wander back down for a total of three hours on the ice.

Let's do this!

I felt fine until the moment my foot hit ice. It took a few minutes to get used to the feeling of the crampons, and I found I did not trust them at all. I immediately felt my chest restricting, and its message was clear: I choose flight.

But I stuck through! I just kept looking forward and at my feet, not out at the shrinking horizon. I stepped over a small crevasse and looked down at least 40 feet, right into the eye of the beast. I kept going, and learned about the glacier from our helpful guide along the way.

I took a college geology class, but the only thing I remembered about glaciers is that they carve out valleys and that they're melting. Looking out towards our cars, the guide told us that when summer tours had stopped in August, the glacier reached all the way to where we parked. That was startling.

The glacier used to go up to the cars

I am so terrified in this photo

He explained that glaciers move, too - they're just not moving (i.e. getting replenished from more snow at the top) fast enough to keep up with the melting. Glaciers form when snow falls at the top of the glacier, where it's too cold to melt. Over time it compresses into ice, and then gravity starts pulling the ice down a mountain, where it carves it's way over thousands of years. The glaciers in Iceland are relatively young at only a few thousand years. But the actual turnover rate is about 100 years - the ice down at the foot had started as snow just a century ago. This means that occasionally, in a melted spot or at the foot, they'll find a 50 year old sled or a 90 year old boot.

His stories could sometimes be hard to hear; the temperature was about 30 degrees, but every few minutes a fierce Arctic wind would hit, whipping up under my coat and hood, and throwing my balance off. His words would drift off in the wind as I ground my crampons down tighter into the ice.

And yet before I knew it, we had reached the flat part of the glacier that would be as high as we would venture. We wandered around, exploring the ice. The guide had warned us at the beginning not to step on snowy areas - if the snow was sticking, it likely meant there was a hold underneath. A hole that could reach up to the full 200 feet deep. He pointed out a few of these - called "moulins" (windmill in French) for some reason - and aggressively stabbed his ice pick in it to show that the snow would fall away, uncovering a pit beneath. Not reassuring.

Moulin - looks like an ashy pool of death to me

But the exhilaration of conquering the fear and making it to the top started to take hold, and getting back down again was a breeze. I felt like I could do anything in that moment.

Sitting in a warm coffee shop at the base of the glacier at the end of the hike, I felt like I'd done something really special, something I wouldn't have thought I'd enjoy, and did. Our entire trip to Iceland was a revelation - when properly insulated with good winter gear, I didn't mind the cold so much. I definitely want to do more adventurous travel activities - where have extreme hikes and rugged tours been my whole life? Your Apprentess could definitely stand to learn more about geology and nature up close (although I may have to stick a little closer to home for the next ones).

Learn more:

Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier
Tours:

• Icelandic Mountain Guides: https://www.mountainguides.is/day-tours/glacier-tours/?ref=fb2 
• Glacier National Park (Montana) Virtual Tour (a bit warmer and more accessible!): http://www.nps.gov/glac/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm