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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Iceland \u2013 ice climbing in the land of the glaciers
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\nBy Mario Sertori
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\nModern man is at the mercy of the climate changes that are turning the planet upside down. Does this mean that in the future the ice-climber will have a hard time? Listening to the sorry tales of Italian ice climbers, it would seem the answer is Yes. The idea of going to Iceland, the remote island in the middle of the ocean, and a stone\u2019s throw from the Arctic Circle, to go ice climbing isn\u2019t so crazy then.
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\nMaybe there is better climbing in less remote places or in areas more easily reached from the main European airline hubs, but just the name of the place – Iceland \u2013 is a good guarantee of finding our raw material, even if your arrival happens to coincide with an unusually warm spell of weather. Peter, our correspondent on the ground and future host, was anxious to reassure us that the place would meet our requirements, that the frozen waterfalls were well-formed and that the weather forecast was favourable.
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\nAs proof, he sent us a splendid photo of his house with a rocky buttress in the background, literally carpeted with a huge amount of ice. After several hours of flying over never-ending gloomy seas, we stirred from the torpor of the pressurised cabin, dazzled by the brightness from the windows: there it was, the mysterious island which, without any cloud cover, seemed to our curious eyes to be white, luminous and apparently uninhabited.
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\nIce…sure, lots of it, but flat, with seracs and crevasses. We were overhead Vatnaj\u00f6kull, Europe\u2019s biggest glacier, which descends southwards and seems to want to dive into the sea. Further away, large emerald rivers carved arabesque designs on the white surface. I was convinced I\u2019d be landing in an icy desert, when I felt the plane start to descend and on the horizon there appeared the first traces of human civilisation: in the shelter of a bay, I saw what I reckoned must have been Reykjavik, a geometric plethora of houses, huddled together to best defend themselves from the pitiless Arctic winds.
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\nOnce we\u2019d landed and collected our gear, we completely filled a good-sized 4X4 and set off, heading north then east. We had just under 400 km to drive and calculated we\u2019d need about 4 hours. But after having crossed a fjord through a dark and gloomy tunnel (which we found a bit worrying, given the area\u2019s seismic activity), the swirling snow caught us off-guard, the road became an ice rink and the car a sledge, and our destination seemed ever further away. After 5 hours of tense driving, we finally reached the outskirts of Akureyri, Iceland\u2019s second-largest city after Reykjavik.
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\nWe were relieved to be once again surrounded by other people, after all those wild kilometres. It was 11 o\u2019clock at night, the thermometer showed -13 and the visibility was finally acceptable. At a roundabout, the car rebelled, and the back end slid out, but no worries: two big lads in short sleeves energetically pushed us back onto the road. Friendly, the Icelanders! After one last fjord, and down a country road, in 40 cm of soft snow, we arrived at Peter Hl\u00f6\u00f0ver\u2019s farm.
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\nA big man with a lively smile and kind but firm manners came to meet us. In just a few minutes, he\u2019d put us all to bed in a big house near to his own. Konny, his companion, looked after us for the whole week, feeding us, but above all chatting to us about thousands of things. The dinners at the Hl\u00f6\u00f0vers were memorable, with Peter describing his fisherman grandfather and the terrible winters when the men who went to sea often didn\u2019t come back, or the sheep and cows that were led to the summer pastures through a tunnel excavated out of the bare rock.
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\nNow that the tunnel has collapsed in one of the island\u2019s many mysterious upsets, the animals have acquired the right to go on holidays by boat, on a barge, between the spouting of the whales, which are common here. The Icelanders speak an ancient form of Danish which could have emerged from a hole in time, maybe from the year 1000. Modern words have to fit in: \u201ctelephone\u201d is \u201cwire that talks\u201d and \u201ccomputer\u201d is \u201cthe witch that counts\u201d. There aren\u2019t many Icelanders, and live mostly in the capital, and in the phone book are in alphabet order by first name. Fairies and elves strenuously defend their rights, even requiring roads to be built to go around their secret dwelling places.
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\nTo make up for this, Iceland has the highest penetration of internet in the whole of Europe, so that despite the geographic isolation, you can be always online with the world. You\u2019d never want to get up from the Hl\u00f6\u00f0ver\u2019s table, but we were here for the ice climbing \u2026or, more correctly, I was being paid to come here to ice climb. We set out with a promising blue sky on a track Peter had prepared, in a vehicle rather more aggressive than our tranquil 4X4. There were five kilometres of buttresses plastered with ice and we couldn\u2019t help but stop every 100 steps to gaze up at the crystalline marvels that were winking at us.
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\nWe finally arrived at the beach, a real beach: black sand shaped by the ocean waves and overlooked by the most beautiful ice cliff you\u2019d ever seen. Vertical ice falls straight down to the dark sea, and the walls are suspended above this marine scene. You climb with a geometrically-perfect backdrop, with the horizon meeting the cliffs at 90\u00b0. Frenetic seagulls dived around us, calling us to action, and happy to see some movement that isn\u2019t the boring to-and-fro of the waves. Eric the Red set off from these shores towards the unknown and conquering turbulent seas landed at the then-unknown Greenland.
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\nWe, less audaciously, were content to climb vertical glaciers with the funny sensation of having the Arctic sea under our feet, a combination of euphoria and fear that is really what\u2019s splendid about this crazy kind of climbing. At night, as we were returning home, hypnotized by the streaks of the aurora borealis in the sky, a nice surprise: Konny\u2019s daughter came to meet us with a Thermos flask of hot coffee and biscuits. In the following days we experienced the real winter Icelandic weather: we didn\u2019t see the sun again, and we had to try to get used to climbing at the mercy of the swirling winds, in a sort of blind dance. Konny showed me photocopies with the frozen waterfalls and the routes so far explored by the locals and the Austro-German-Canadian team that had scoured the area in the last winter.
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\nTop ice-climbers like Albert Leichtfried and Markus Bendler, and the explosive pair Ines Papert\/Audrey Gariepy, made some important ascents which were captured by the photographer Hermann Erber and even a German TV crew which made a film about the girls: 1000 metres of ice in 24 hours. On one of the images that I had in my hand, Leichtfried had drawn the line of the area\u2019s first mixed route, a monstrous overhang bristling with upside-down candles: Captain hook, M9+ and dedicated to the late Hary Berger. On the icy curtain before Captain Hook, I\u2019d seen a big detached pillar which isn\u2019t on the maps, a crystallized tree trunk, a nightmare: Stefano and I clung onto its hollow shell, a mush produced by the local genius and spat onto the smooth surface of the glacier.
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\nThis climb was a good test, a real war of nerves which occupied us for several hours right up to the edge of the wall, where furious gusts of wind from Greenland tried to tear us off. By now we were high up, our gaze extending to the milky horizon and we could still hear the angry grumbling of the waves. After so much cold, we treated ourselves to a hot bath in the natural pools of Lake Mivatn. To float in this opaque water gives you a sensation of total wellbeing, as you are made a bit drowsy by the strong smell of sulphur.
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\nBoiling jets of steam shoot out of the glacier, and you can see patches of black earth and lava. Around, there is snow as far as you can see, volcanic and glacier debris and the unnerving litany of the boiling waters. A terrible landscape, from the dawn of time. This is Iceland: fire and ice, dazzling whiteness and freezing cold, silence and roaring noise. Maybe Jules Verne was right to put the entrance of the Journey to the Centre of the Earth right here?
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\nPractical information
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\nGetting there
\nYou fly to Iceland via Amsterdam or Copenhagen. The ticket costs about 700 euro. To rent a 4×4 (strongly advised) costs around 700 euro a week. Speed limit on tarmaced roads 90 km\/h.
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\nWhere to climb
\nKaldakinn is in the north-east of the island and is reached from Keflavik International Airport following the signs for the capital Reykjavik (about 40 minutes) and then for Akureyri along highway 1. At Akureyri keep following Highway 1; just before the famous Godafoss waterfall, turn north on Road 85 and continue in this direction towards Bjorg (the last section of the road is numbered 851). The ice climbing is located on the rocky band that starts near the farm and finishes after 5 km at the ocean. The nearest climbs are reached in just a few minutes; for the others you can follow, snow permitting, a track which runs under the crag right to the beach.
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\nMulafjall is an ice-climbing site fairly close to Reykjavik (about 45 minutes) in the end of the Hvalfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur fjord. From Reykjavik follow signs for Highway 1 and, at Saurb\u00e6r, turn right (highway 47) for Eyrfjall. Proceed following the edge of the fjord for some 30 km. Park at the edge of the road and walk to the ice falls.
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\nGlymsgil: a little beyond Mufjall, 4 km from the end of the Hvalfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur fjord, is a spectacular gorge, usually in condition at the end of February, with ice climbing of all grades of difficulty.
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\nHaukadalur is situated in the west of the island at the end of the Hvammsfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur fjord, two-and-a-half hours from the capital and is reached following Highway 1 and then Highway 60 for B\u00fa\u00f0ardalur. Lots of hard ice climbing.
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\nFor more information:
\nIcebjorg
\nwww.outdoors.is\/ice-climbing-areas
\nwww.edinburghjmcs.org.uk\/pdfs\/iceland.pdf
\nwww.hofsnes.com
\nwww.isalp.is
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\nMoney
\nIcelandic krona which you can buy at Reykjavik airport.
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\nWhere to stay
\nHotels are usually very expensive, but it\u2019s easy to find accommodation at prices that are more than reasonable in Farmhouses (private rooms inside the farmhouses) or in Farmers\u2019 Guesthouses (on the farm, but separated from the owner\u2019s accommodation) where you can cook. Consuult the site www.farmholidays.is..
\nAt Kaldakinn a good place to stay (half-board or only to sleep) is at Bjorg\u2019s farm \u00a0(hp.bjorg@simnet.is\u00a0or bjorgum@bjorgum.is ): good prices and good cooking.\u00a0 Website Bjorg’s farm and info ice
\nAt Haukadalur \u00a0the St\u00f3ra-Vatnshorn farm on road 586 is good.
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\nWeather
\nBizzarre, unpredictable and changeable. It\u2019s not that cold, but you should be prepared to climb when it\u2019s windy and snowing. There are frequent warmer spells even in winter, due to the influence of the Azores anticyclone. You get the best conditions when the anticyclone meets the low pressure area which sits over the island, generating northerly winds which cause a marked drop in temparatuires.
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\nBest time to go
\nFrom January to the end of March. In December the hours of daylight are very limited.
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\nThings to see
\nIceland is a varied, fascinating island with lots of places to visit. The Lake Myvatn area is very interesting, not far from the Kaldakinn climbing area, with its natural hot pools and numerous vulcanic craters. In the Sn\u00e6fellsnes peninsula there is the Sn\u00e6fellsj\u00f6kull, the volcano where the Journey to the Centre of the Earth starts in Jules Verne\u2019s novel. About 40 minutes from Reykjavik there\u2019s the famous \u201cBlue Lagoon\u201d, a thermal station with bluish hot water, located in a desert of lava and black beaches.
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\n\u00a0Mario Sertori 2\/2008
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Iceland \u2013 ice climbing in the land of the glaciers \u00a0 By Mario Sertori \u00a0 Modern man is at the mercy of the climate changes that are turning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7925],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-bouldering"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n