Aperture: Scotts Iceland Blog

I will post this entry in 2 parts.

We left Reykjevik on Wednesday morning and traveled to Pingvellir (pron: thingvellir). This is where the North American continental plate and the European plate meets. They are separating at a rate of 1mm per year resulting in a very large fissure between the 2 continents.

From Pingvellir we traveled out to Geysir which is the site of a geothermal field with a geyser that erupts every 5 mins. Then onto Gullfoss, a waterfall that is about 105 feet and is settled into a little canyon. We then traveled north on an interior mountain road as far as we could before it became impassable. On the way we stopped at Langjokull which is one of the three largest glaciers on Iceland and from here we could see some of Hofsjokull which is another of these glaciers.

We traveled south at this point to Hekla. Hekla is a 4,920 ft volcano that is very active. In the 16th century this volcano was believed among Europeans to be the entrance to hell. Now we know its just a volcano. It erupts on an average of every 10 years and its last eruption was in February 2000. This volcano can pretty much be seen from most of the southwest. They say that Helkla is almost always covered in clouds. We were lucky enough to see the volcano completely uncovered. Around this volcano are signs of past eruptions and it is very barren.

After our day we crashed at the farm again which was very educational and extremely cozy. The next day we made our way southwest to Kerio a volcanic crater and Seltun geothermal fields with boiling mud pools and fun shizzy like that. Then, we are heading north to Snaefellsnes Peninsula and Snaefellsjokull the 4,772 ft glacier that is named in Jules Verne's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth".

Props to Jonathan for the heads up in the airport on some of these amazing places!

Between the continents North America and Eroupe at Pingvellir
Geyser Erupting 1
Geyser Erupting 2
Geyser Erupting 3
Bottom of Gullfoss waterfall
Top of Gullfoss waterfall
Gullfoss waterfall
Hekla, the volcano

I will post part 2 of this later tonight.

-Scott