Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.07.2018, Page 21

21 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 16— 2018
RAGNAR HELGI ÓLAFSSON
jökull to the west and the vast, snowy
bulge of Vatnajökull to the east. Hofs-
jökull seems to have been almost ever-
present throughout the past four days,
and as it vanishes into the rear-view
mirror, I get a pang of sadness that the
journey is nearing its end.
Our final night will be spent at the
Landmannalaugar campsite in the
Friðland að Fjallabaki nature reserve.
We trundle down towards Fjallabak,
peering through the windscreen at the
odd, knobbly mountains at its edge.
Despite my tired limbs and heavy
eyelids, the approach to Landmanna-
laugar is invigorating. We spend the
next hour taking in a succession of
stunning purple-green mountains,
steep lava flows and a deep caldera lake
with viscerally hewn seams of earth
banded around the near-vertical cliff-
side shoreline.
At the campsite, we hit a sudden
line of traffic. A glacial outpour on the
southwest tip of Vatnajökull, in the
Skaftafell region, means that all the
campsites in the area have been evacu-
ated—and everyone has flocked to
Landmannalaugar.
GAS SCARE
After an hour long hike through the
lava maze that overlooks the campsite
to the famously colourful mountains
of Landmannalaugar, and a long soak
in the nearby geothermally hot river,
we encounter Páll Ágúst. He’s a search
and rescue worker who took part in the
evacuation.
“It was a big operation,” he says.
“We’ve been closing roads and making
sure they stay closed. There were groups
out hiking without vehicles, so we had
to locate them, pick them up and trans-
port them to Hólaskjól, south of the
closed area. But then we had to evacu-
ate that place too, because of hydro-
gen sulphide pollution from the river.”
Landmannalaugar is one of three
search and rescue bases in the area.
“There’s here, then one in Nýidalur and
one in Dreki. Each team spends one
week up here. Most people use their
summer vacation to do this.”
ON PATROL
The search and rescue teams carry out
a range of duties. “Apart from direc-
tions and information, we mostly
handle people with small wounds or
stuck vehicles,” says Páll. “People often
drive too fast into the river, and drown
their car. Twenty minutes ago we got a
call from the police about a car stuck
north of Myrdalsjökull. It’s a bit far
for us, so the guys from Hvolsvöllur
are gonna go. Those kind of incidents
happen a lot.”
Páll especially enjoys going on patrol.
“Quite often, people don’t call for help,
but rather we find them,” he smiles.
“Every day we go for a long drive of four
to eight hours and observe the rivers.
Quite often we find someone in a bit
of trouble and we help them out of it.”
The next morning, as we finally
trundle westwards out of Fjallabak
towards Route One, we pass through
a plain dotted with strange standing
rock formations. My tired eyes catch
them in my peripheral vision, imagin-
ing them as the figures of static guard-
ians looking on silently as we leave.
At the outset of our journey, five days
seemed like a luxuriously long trip, but
after this intense barrage of magical
sights, unforgettable places and inter-
esting people, I feel keenly aware that I
haven’t even begun to fully understand
these wild and magical Highlands.
“THE EARTH PRODUCES NEW
LAND. LIFE IS STARTING UP
HERE. IT’S SO DIFFERENT
FROM ONE DAY TO THE
NEXT—IT’S SO ALIVE.”
Páll Águst
The hot pot at Hveravellir
Kerlingarfjöll mountain resortOne of many river crossings