25.03.21: Nostalgia took over me as I researched the map and sorted photos.. Will continue tomorrow.
06.02.23: The tomorrow has finally come.
That day was a very long one. I woke up about 07:00 and was already 08:30 at the top of Skogar waterfall going up the stairs to the right of the camp.
21.04.24
And so here we are: its year 2024, I broke my clavicula four weeks ago rather stupidly (as my children say in German by now, “papa fährt ski sehr schnell aber schlecht“), it sort of almost healed by itself in about 3 weeks from then, but for more elegance in line and for more classic shoulder form without ungainly bone protrusions I went for a ‘small routine operation’ that for now keeps me mostly home-bound and mostly on painkillers. They gave me a ton at the hospital, also some heavier prescription-only stuff I’ve never tried before;)
I can type though..
typical icelandic patina and bizarre lava relief – as I was walking past that stream, alone, in a cold morning mist, I thought I am on some other planet
The path first went uphill along the impressive Skogar gorge raising almost a kilometer (from 0m altitude a the Skogar camp to 1000m at the to the Magni/Modi pass with the Eyafjallajokul glacier on the left). Back then I was pretty young (and headstrong) so 1000m with a 20kg rucksack — i think i didnt even notice that much.
Still, by about midday on that day I was walking in complete solitude. Some dude overcame me jogging though at some point. He didnt even have a bottle of water on him, to say nothing of the backpack. I never seen him running back so I reckon he’s been jogging over to the Þórsmörk. Must have been an amazing jog, that route.
As I passed Eyjafjallajokull on the right, the glacier felt like a menace, I tried to pass it quickly. In 2010, as I was blissfully not being aware of whats happening in the world, but the eruption of that volcano make huge news back then – I remember that somehow, it was in the late spring and the volcano dust grounded the airplanes for a few days with business people charting taxis to go from DE back to UK and so.
Its funny though that that particular eruption was nowhere near what the volcanos can do (and did in the past) in terms of dust produced. It was rather benign. Enjoy air travel while you can…
Anyways, about 13:00 I started to descend toward Þórsmörk over the black snow and magma fields, being quite under the awe of that particular place of Icelands nature.
About 14:00 suddenly many people appeared, most of them walking towards me (duh!). What I didnt consider, is that the descent to the Þórsmörk is for the most part without water access as it follows a dry rock ridge downwards. I didnt know that of course so I struggled a bit with empty bottles until I was almost at the bottom.
