Iceland : Nike ACG Team Blog : News from the snowbard team

Iceland

Published on August 7, 2007. 14:22

On the 17th of july Tyler turned thirty, and I bought us planetickets to Iceland as his birthdaypresent. We arrived in fashion, staying in hotel Plaza in Reykjavik the first night. We rented a little car and strapped our kayaks down on the roof, using our thermarests as protection for the roof itself. However, we soon enough regretted not having spent the money on a four by four vehicle! As we drove around the island (2000 kms...) we tried to venture off the paved highway, but more than often we got stopped by huge bumps and rivercrossings on our way to potential put-ins... So we decided pretty quickly that we were gonna have to do the park and hucks instead of any riverruns..

After I picked the brain of nepali raftguide Anup and his friend (thanks for your info!) we managed to get to a cascading river flowing down to Seydisfjordur on the north-eastern coast. The drive up there was more than breathtaking... Huge, vast glaciers came down from the mountains everywhere, making it hard to drive safely.. Couldnt stop looking to our left and stare in awe at these frozen rivers rolling down towards the highway! Pretty waterfalls eveywhere, paddling with icebergs in a rather cold lagoon and boiling geysirs made our trip more than interesting..

For Tylers birthday we camped at the foot of the volcano Hekla, which is the most active one in Iceland.. A touch exciting for sure, as we were in the lava desert, and definitely in danger if it would errupt suddenly again like it has in the past...

In five days we managed to run a few rivers and see some amazing scenery.. I will let the photos do the rest of the talking...