Day 4: One trail ends…another begins

I’m Writing this a day late. Mostly beause I was having too much fun yesterday. Which is a good thing.

The Laugavegur Trail is officially complete. The next two days will be for day hikes in the area of Thorsmork where we are now.

We hiked about ten miles in mostly rolling terrain. While there was, like yesterday, some walking through black sand plains, we also walked through our first Icelandic forest. Yes! There are forests in Iceland. Though definitely not what we think of.

You see, while hundreds of years ago Iceland was about 40% tree covered most of those trees have disappeared. There is, very little vegetation here. On my first two visits I thought that was simply a product of this being the land of Fire and Ice. There is just not much that can grow here. The land certainly is not fertile which is why the few vegetables they do grow are in greenhouses. Everything else has to be imported. Hence why it’s so expensive.

As it turns out the trees that were here disappeared over the years both because of the sheer amount of volcanic activity, as well as human influence. In any case, there is a purposeful effort to reforest Iceland mostly using Arctic Birch, which are not the tallest trees. Hence the joke: What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? “Stand up.”

I’ve also discovered three things over over the last several days. One: The elevation gains and losses given in the itinerary are all wrong. Two: Iceland’s definition of flat is not Chicago’s definition of flat. Three: My cardio fitness is shit these days. Thank goodness for the training this trip is providing or I’d be in serious trouble in Peru a few weeks from now. But that’s a story for another day.

To be honest one of the coolest things about this trek has been to discover just how mountainous the highlands of Iceland’s Southern coast are. When you drive the Ring Road you mostly have the Artic Sea on one side, and the fjords on the other. It’s pretty idyllic but you really have no idea what lies on the other side unless you are able to get off road which is basically prohibited with most car rentals. And even if you do have the right sort of vehicle, there aren’t that many side roads in Iceland, dirt or otherwise.

The campsite we arrived at today though certainly seems very well communicated. Being the end of the Laugavegur Trail, this is where the buses pick us up for the return trip to Reykjavik. There are also day tours that come here for people in search of a short hike. It’s also—by a country mile—the best campsite/hut setup we’ve been at. We’re still all sharing a room together, and there is still no electricity, but the huts are much larger, there are tons of picnic tables to hang out at, there are separate bathrooms for men and women. And OMG, they are tiled!!! I know, I know. It’s amazing how fast you can come to appreciate the little things when you don’t have them for a few days. Kind of like chilled white wine.

Anyway today ended reasonably early since we were losing two of our group and we had to finish in time for them to get their bus. Being the picture perfect day that it was we all just camped out at one of the picnic tables laughing, drinking wine and eating lots of Pringles until “Happy Hour” turned into dinner. Have I mentioned sunset doesn’t happen till around midnight? It really is easy to lose track of time here.

I’m on the top bunk again today, but I’ve got a double mattress all to myself. Yay!!