Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.03.2013, Blaðsíða 24

Grapevine last spoke to you just
before this summer’s presidential
elections, which saw incumbent
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson re-elected
to a record fifth term. How do you
feel about the whole experience
of running? Have you had time to
reflect on it all?
Yes, I have. The experience was a very
positive one. My arguments for a new
person in office as well as for how the
president should conduct his work
were well received. My wife, María,
and I travelled all over Iceland, meeting
thousands of people who were genu-
inely interested in the interaction be-
tween this directly elected spokesper-
son of society on one hand and people
or politics on the other.
Surveys and later research by social
scientists show that two viewpoints
amongst voters heavily affected the
election outcome. One was a voter’s
view towards the acting government.
If you supported the government you
voted against Ólafur Ragnar. If you
were against the government, you
voted for him. The other was the no-
tion that you had to vote for one of the
two people leading in the polls, even if
you thought that some of the other can-
didates were better suited for the job.
Surveys revealing these facts indicate
that I had far more support from vot-
ers than the election results suggest.
Numerous calls, e-mails and personal
statements that I have since received
also lead me to conclude that I have to
consider whether or not to run again.
María and I aren’t going to make any
decisions now, but we will have to
one day.
To conclude: I don’t think that there
was enough participation in the elec-
tions and I hope we will never again see
voter turnout below 70%. A mandate
with some 85,000 votes out of a con-
tingent of 230,000 voters is not solid
enough ground.
TOO MANY PEAKS TO
COUNT

As an avid hiker for many years,
do you find that reflecting is
something best done at the top of
a mountain?
I started hiking and mountaineering
some 45 years ago, gradually putting
more and more emphasis on technical
climbing and high-altitude mountain-
eering. However, hiking has always
played a big part in such activities as
well as my leisure time. Hiking is good
for your soul, at least mine. It puts you
in a close contact with the environment
and it strengthens your body and al-
lows you to savour nature. It also en-
ables you to think freely because aside
from maybe seeking the best way for-
ward or marvelling at some sights, you
have ample time to let the mind wander
and I get many good ideas while hiking.
Quite often the summit is not the
main goal of a hike or climb and some-
times it doesn’t involve a summit. But
summits are nice, and I have been lucky
enough to make it to the top of a num-
ber of otherwise unclimbed ones in Ice-
land.

Your most recent book, ‘Summit
- 100 Mountain Hikes,’ published
in English last year, suggests that
you’ve topped at least 100 sum-
mits in Iceland. How do you make
time for all of these mountains?
Do you spend more time a few
hundred metres up than you do at
ground level?
I don’t know how many mountains I
have scaled in the last 45 years, but
the number isn’t what’s important. I
topped a number of these 100 while
working as a guide from approximate-
ly 1967–1990 and others through free-
lance work and assignments over the
last 25 years, such as hosting TV pro-
grammes. For the most part, however,
I have been a family man with a good
number of chores to do on the ground
level.

Are there many left for
you to conquer?
Yes, there are, especially abroad, but
that doesn’t bother me. There are
some summits that I do not want to
scale, as they are uninteresting or they
are too time-consuming, but in any
case, it would be impossible to climb
them all, as there are just far too many.
I am very happy with what I have got-
ten away with.
A few words on the term ‘conquer’:
I think it has an aura of disrespect.
Man does not conquer nature. A
mountain always has the
upper hand even after
you’ve scaled it. It will
remain almost un-
changed long after
you’ve been there.
Man has to learn
how to be a humble
part of nature, to
treat it as an equal,
not as something to be
conquered—something
that has been falsely stated
in books and by important people
through ages.
Are there some that you
keep coming back to?
In general no, because I try to seek new
experiences but of course you can get
that by scaling the same mountain by
different routes or in different seasons.
In addition, hiking and climbing require
practice and you tend to use moun-
tains that are close to your home for
such purposes. I have often stood on
top of the same mountains, but am still
adding new ones to my bank of experi-
ence. An absolute favourite? No.
INCREASING TRAFFIC
A woman died last month while
hiking Esja, a mountain that
gets so much traffic that some
have likened its main footpath to
Laugavegur, downtown Reyk-
javík’s main drag. Is it a danger-
ous mountain? Was this a freak
accident?
Esja is a big mountain with dozens of
routes, which can be especially tough
during the winter season. One way
to decrease strain on the two to three
main hiking routes is for more people
to wander to other nearby mountains,
most of which are also quite tough for
6–7 months of the year. I would also ad-
vise people to gain hiking and moun-
taineering experience in small and ad-
equate steps.
I cannot comment on the painful
accident because I do not know the
circumstances. Sadly, since 1980, we
have had a number of deaths or serious
accidents occurring amongst moun-
taineers. In some cases, it is hard to see
what could have prevented an accident
but in other cases poor judgment, lack
of experience or equipment or a seri-
ous mistake is at fault. As the number
of accidents is prone to increase with
more people on the move, the need
for more information and educa-
tion grows. And this has been met by
courses, written material and webpag-
es. Still, there is not enough awareness
at hand and I regularly meet hikers on
my tours that are poorly equipped or
haven’t checked the weather forecast.
What kinds of precautions should
people take before venturing into
Iceland’s often-unforgiving nature?
Take one to two day weather fore-
casts seriously, seek advice if uncer-
tain about something, let others know
where you are heading, learn about
snow avalanches and very ba-
sic mountaineering skills,
use basic equipment
according to sea-
son, have some
spare clothing
in the backpack,
fuel consistently
(eat and drink!)
and don’t be
afraid to turn back.
I have written
newspaper articles
almost every year now
to remind people about what I
think are two of the most serious flaws:
not using proper crampons and ice
axes for winter ascents and not prop-
erly knowing how to use ropes and har-
nesses on glaciers.
Most mountains in Iceland are
distinctively lacking in footpaths.
This raw element is undoubt-
edly part of the beauty, but it
probably comes at a cost too. Do
you think there is real danger of
hikers trampling and destroying
precisely what makes the experi-
ence special?
Yes, in some cases. This stems from
the fact that the organisation of hiking,
mountaineering and preservation of
mountain areas is very scarce. Like so
many aspects of tourism and travelling
in Iceland, hiking, like off-roading, has
for decades been a free zone, a haphaz-
ard jungle expedition, more or less an
open field for entrepreneurs.
With increased traffic, this has to be
addressed and requires investment like
the funds now allocated by the govern-
ment to improve "hot spots." But at the
same time, we have to watch out for
the tendency to be too restrictive.
- ANNA ANDERSEN
Peaks Are Not For Conquering
We talk hiking with Ari Trausti Guðmundsson
Ari Trausti Guðmundsson is a prolific writer whose collection of short stories ‘Vegalínur’ (“Road Lines”) received the Halldór Laxness
Literature Prize in 2002. Perhaps more so than his fiction and poetry, however, the trained geophysicist and mountaineer is known for the
tens of books that he has written about Iceland, its nature and rich geology. After flipping through his most recent output in this genre,
‘Summit - 100 Mountain Hikes,’ which is, as the title suggests, a book detailing 100 hikes in Iceland, we thought, ‘This is impressive. It’s
time to drop Ari Trausti a line...’
INTER
VIEW
24The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 3 — 2013 Other recent English-language books by Ari Trausti include ‘Focus on Iceland,’ a road guide for tourists, ‘Magma,’ a book documenting Icelandic volcanoes from the Katla eruption in 1918 to Vatnajökull in 2011, and ‘Eyjafjallajökull On Fire’ about the 2010 eruption.
Ragnar Th. Sigurðsson
Answer to trivia question
on page 2:
A Finland
“
„
Man does not con-
quer nature. A moun-
tain always has the
upper hand even after
you’ve scaled it.