Iceland: Hornstrandir Nature Reserve
Hey everyone,
It's been a LONG time since I've put together a blog post. I've had a bunch of people asking for photos from our recent honeymoon so I figured it was a good time to dust off the keyboard. We've been home for a few weeks now, but trying to edit 3 weeks worth of photos and video has taken the back seat to other work trips and projects. Since there are so many photos to share I am going to break it up into 3 parts. Hover over the photos for more info on them. Here goes...
After a long trip to Iceland we landed in Reykjavik. From there we jumped on a bus, transferred to a bus, and then caught a domestic flight to Isafjourder. We grabbed pizza and beers, packed our bags, and hit the sack. The following morning we woke up and headed to the docks to catch our boat to Hornstrandir.
It was a beautiful morning and we were excited to get our first glimpses of the country after so much travel and poor weather. Spirits were high especially after we finally got a good night's rest.
After an hour or so of boating and soaking up the scenery, we arrived at our first stop. Our boat was equipped with boat-on-boat technology so the captain unloaded the zodiac and the dayhikers all jumped on.
After the first drop, we headed to Veiðileysufjörður where we would start out hike. When the boat finally left, Corrie and I just sat on the shore and started laughing. It had taken us over two days of traveling by car, planes, trains, busses, taxis, and boats to get here, and we were finally able to enjoy it. After shedding layers and grabbing some snacks we set off for the pass. The plan for the day was to hike from one fjord to another by going up and over a pass.
After a few hours on the trail we finally made it to the pass. The weather was so nice and I was still jet-lagged so I dropped my pack and took a nap. We knew that today's weather was going to be the nicest of this leg of the trip so we weren't in a hurry. Eventually we decided to move on so we could set up camp. As we made it to the other side of the pass we could see the Horn, the destination of the following day's hike.
As we dropped into the Hornvik area the entire valley was ringed with waterfalls. As we were nearing camp we were discussing how much we hoped we would see an arctic fox. It's an animal that neither of had seen before. Just as we made it to camp I said, "hey look at that!" as an arctic fox ran past us. It wasn't close enough for a photo so we were a little bummed, but we didn't know that we'd be seeing many more up close.
The next morning we woke up to a low ceiling. We had the advantage of long days on our side so we slept in hoping that the weather would improve. That cool feature that we planned to hike out to today, the Horn,
was completely hidden in clouds. We decided that we should hike out there anyway and hopefully the weather would improve. Since it was high tide we decided to hike out and cross the river where it was wider instead of near the ocean.
Once we made it to the river we took off our shoes and started across the chilly water. On the other side the trail took us past some spectacular waterfalls and black cobble beaches.
As we pushed further out to the Horn the weather started to improve behind us. The trail ahead was still in the clouds, but we were finally able to see our camp and where we had come from.
As we made it to the Horn you could barely see the Arctic Ocean below or the views ahead. So we decided to sit and see if the weather would improve. Lucky for us, it did.
The trail took us along a beautiful, lush ridgeline that looked down on the Arctic Ocean. As we made it to the pass we could see all of Hornvik and the sea of clouds rolling in from the north. It was such an awesome view to take in.
I was slightly behind Corrie on the way up and once she hit the ridge where she could see into the next valley all I heard from her was "Oh fuck yea!" When I made it there a few seconds later I shouted something similar. We were staring at this awesome knife-edged geologic feature with clouds rolling up and over below them. This view was one of the main reasons that we wanted to visit this area and we knew that we had lucked out with the weather. So I pulled out our bottle of Woodford Reserve and we just sat there by ourselves and enjoyed the view.
We knew that we were going to get hungry for dinner eventually so we decided to push on. The trail was along some of the craziest terrain. It was awesome.
We stopped often to take photos of the scenery, flowers and foxes playing. There was still plenty of sunlight but we were running out of snacks for the day so we looped back around the ridge and backtracked our way to camp.
On the way back it was low tide so we decided to cross the river at the ocean this time. The day was still warm enough that I decided to go for a swim. After that the last couple miles home was along a black sand beach, no shoes needed.
After dinner we had a visitor.
Needless to say it was a long but amazing day.
The next day we woke up to rain. That would be our reality for the rest of the trip. Every once in a while the weather would quit long enough for me to break out the camera and take a few shots, but overall it was extremely cold and wet.
We weren't the only ones that were cold and wet. I'm sure a lot of what we hiked through was awesome looking, but at points the visibility was so bad that we had to split up to find the next cairns. All part of the adventure I guess.
Day 4 we woke up to more rain. My sleeping bag had finally dried out from my body heat but I was not looking forward to putting wet clothes and shoes back on. We made breakfast in the tent, a luxury not afforded to us normally because we camp in bear country, and then continued on through rivers and marshes and over more mountain passes.
At one point I was so cold and tired that I started to get the "umbles." All of my gear was soaked. Either from sweat or rain. It was so wet and windy that the only gear that would have kept us completely dry would have been like rubber fisherman slickers. So when we finally made it to the pass where we could see our final destination we were both extremely happy.
We made it to camp, set up our tent, and magically the rain stopped long enough for us to have dinner and hang our stuff out to dry. We also found out that there was a small coffee shop where we could grab some coffee and sweets and get out of the elements for a short bit.
Hornstrandir was an awesome trip. We got to see the area at it's best and it's not-so-best. When the weather is good it's mostly easy hiking if you're in good shape and have some navigational skills. When the weather is bad you better have lots of high-calorie food, good rain gear, and excellent navigational skills.
When the boat came the following day to pick us up were weren't too sad to leave, only because we were ready for hot showers and non-dehydrated food. We grabbed dinner and beers back in Isafjourder, hit the sack, grabbed a taxi the following morning, and took the plane back to Reykjavik. From there we planned to rent a car and explore The Golden Circle and southern coast.
Trip notes: We hiked a total of 31 miles with 7,700' of elevation gain. Spectacular area and I would love to go back. The logistics are complicated to get there, but it's worth it!
Comments
What month did you hike? And for how many days?