The White Falcon - 19.06.1981, Síða 4

4 White Falcon June 19, 1981
Mount Snaefell's peak
Mountain climbing
in Iceland
Jim Terbush & Peter Bertrand
take on Mount Snaefell
Oixty air miles northwest of
Keflavik, Iceland, is Mount "Snae-^
fell, the site chosen by Jules
Verne for the setting of his
novel, "Journey to the Center of
the Earth." A similar journey was
made this spring by two NATO Base
residents, LT Jim Terbush of the
Naval Station Hospital and LCDR
Peter Bertrand of the Naval Station
Dental Department. This article
was written for the White Falcon's
"Exploring Iceland" series by LT
Terbush.
The Snaefellsnes peninsula can
be reached by car or by air. The
drive is approximately seven hours
and follows a circuitous path around
Whale Bay and Borgarfjordur Bay,
then up the south side of the Snae-
fells peninsula. The peninsula can
be seen on a map of Iceland extend-
ing west between the Five Fingers
area and the Reykjanes peninsula,
which is the location of the NATO
Base. The mountain Snaefell can
be seen at the western-most tip of
the peninsula. It appears as a
large, white, dome-shaped mountain
rising from the ocean when looking
to the northwest.
Weather along the south coast
of Snaefells is typically Icelandic
(i.e. changable), and severe stor^B
are common at the top of the moun^J
tain. Icelanders claim, however,
that the southern coast of Snae-
fells is favored with warmer, sun-
nier weather than other parts of
the island.
We flew from the NATO Base with
SMSgt. Howard Benham of the Navy
Flying Club, to a dirt air strip
on the south side of the mountain.
The seven-hour drive might scare
away some travelers but the trip
can be shortened by taking the
ferry from Reykjavik to Akranes.
Flights via Icelandair from Reyk-
javik to the northern side of
Snaefells are available throughout
the summer. When we took off from
Keflavik, the weather was excep-
tionally clear and we could see
Mount Snaefell 60 miles away on the
horizon.
Snaefellsjokull (jokull means
glacier) is described in the book
"Ice and Fire" by Hjalmar R. Bardar-
sson. He states that crevasses on
this small glacier are few and
usually completely closed early in
the year. Snaefell is a volcano
which formed at the end of the
peninsula, and created lava flows
down all sides of the mountain.
The volcanic crater itself at the
top of the mountain is filled with
ice several hundred feet deep,
which is the glacier. The edge of
the crater can be seen, however,
where there are several ice-covered
black rocks pushing up out of the