Iceland review - 2007, Page 26

32 ICELAND REVIEW
Thorvaldur Thórsson is almost nonchalant when he tells you he com pleted his mission this October
to climb all of Iceland’s hundred tallest moun tains in 2007. But it doesn’t take long to pick up on his
enthusiasm or to understand the enormity of the challenge. “A friend of mine challenged me to do this at
a party in January last year. I said yes on the spot, and only then started to really think what I was letting
myself in for,” says Thórsson.
As well as being an ice climber, Thórsson is the Icelandic record holder in the 400-meter hurdles and
seems to relish making things difficult for himself: the original challenge was to climb just 50 mountains.
“Because it was my 50th birth day,” he explains. “But I started looking and I found 96 moun t ains over
1,400 meters high so the logical thing was to do the top 100.”
Just to make sure he got them all, he actually climbed 167 peaks. And luckily so, because he found
ten or 12 that weren’t on his original list but should have been.
The final mountain was the iconic volcano Hekla, which he invited the world to climb with him. The
weather on October 13 was terrible, but still 80 to 90 people turned out to take part. “People got a really
good sense of what I’ve been experiencing through the year,” he says in defense of the conditions.
“Sometimes in the winter I had weather where I couldn’t see my feet. There was very bad rain one day
when I was on the east of Vatnajökull glacier. I was over my knees in a slush of snow and water so I
decided to take a shortcut down. I couldn’t see anything and ended up in a crevasse hanging from one of
my ski poles. I was very lucky.”
Is there another crazy challenge in the pipes? “I’m just going to have fun this winter climbing with my
buddies. New ideas come when they’re ready, you can’t force them.”AE
Mission Possible
hoto by Páll StefánSSon and courtecy of thorvaldur thórSSon