Crampons on Svínafellsjökull

Not going to lie... day 4 started out terribly. A combination of weird jet lag effects and minor stressing about the weather for our glacier tour and hour early we needed to get up caused me to not sleep at all that night. I was up all night tossing and turning, listening to the rain and worrying about how I wasn't sleeping... The alarm eventually went off at 5:45 and we hustled out the door to start on our two-hour drive to Skaftafell National Park for our glacier tour.

It rained the entire drive... we were so nervous that this glacier walk was going to be such a bust if the rain kept up like this. I dozed off for a bit in the car at least! We arrived at the national park visitor's center and quickly found the the Mountain Guides' building to meet with our guide. There were so many tour companies to choose from when booking this tour! I didn't research them too extensively, but we ended up picking Icelandic Mountain Guides 4-hour guided glacier walk because the pictures online looked amazing! This was our only guided tour of the entire trip and I wanted it to be awesome :) In their building, they have an extensive collection of gear to loan you for the excursion. Everything from waterproof pants and jackets to boots and gloves. We borrowed some boots because ours did not have ankle support, got fitted for our crampons, put on our harnesses, grabbed a helmet and an ice axe!

Our guide was from Czech Republic! His name was Michal (I may have spelled that wrong, he pronounced it like Mee-Kyle). Apparently he spends his summers giving glacier tours in Iceland and his winters teaching skiing in Japan and Switzerland! There were only 10 people in our group which was really nice! We saw other groups go by that had probably double the number of people in them so I'm definitely happy we payed slightly more money and went with Mountain Guides! After spending a decent amount of time learning how to tie on our crampons and then how to properly walk up and down glacier inclines and traverse the top of the glacier, we were ready to go! Crampons are essentially very large (like an inch and a half or so long) spikes that tie to the bottom of your boots. So with each step you take, you have to take care to lift all your spikes out of the ice and then step forcefully enough to sink them back in. It was quite the leg work out! It had finally stopped raining by this point and we all learned very quickly that we were over dressed... we had planned for heavy rain while walking on ice... but with all this crampon-ing, all ten of us were shedding hats and other layers!

It was still raining at this point! All bundled up and ready to go! 

Our playground for the morning!

Struggling with my crampons :P

Andy is unsure about his new accessory, the ice axe

Glacier selfies! We have mud on our face because Michal convinced us it was great for our skin ;)

These ropes are installed and maintained by the guides! They have to be monitored daily because the glacier moves and changes so quickly! Our particular glacier walk is already different from the ones last week! Because the ice changes so often, the crevasses get wider and new paths form all the time. 

I had actually tripped on my spikes here and was a little nervous! The drop offs on the both sides were really deep and I didn't feel like testing the weight limitations of these ropes and ice screws :P I assume Andy snapped this picture after asking me if I was OK? ;)

So many of these, I can't believe Andy risked losing his phone forever for these pictures but they turned out great! 

More glacier selfies! LOL

Trying to be tough like the Vikings :P

This crevasse was so cool!! 

Four hours later and we were beat. This was quite the work out! Our guide was so knowledgeable and entertaining the entire time, we wanted to leave him a tip but only had US dollars! Typical tourist problems :P we hadn't bothered exchanging for any local currency because literally everywhere in Iceland takes credit card, so with no foreign transaction fees, it's a bit cheaper to use our credit card than it is to exchange for cash and eat all those fees. Luckily, Michal told us he was taking a trip to New York soon! First drinks on us, I guess :)

Skaftafell national park is gorgeous and I had originally planned on a hike here to Svartifoss waterfall, which is known for those unique trap rock formations like we saw at Reynisfjara. This is a 3-hour hike, though, and when I was reviewing out itinerary, I knew we had to cut it out because there was still so much to see! I could make a whole new vacation out of things we didn't have time to see on this trip by this point :P

So after a quick lunch, we drove about 40 minutes to Jökulsárlón or Glacier Lagoon! The rain was still on and off and it was quite chilly! Lots of people take either boat or kayaking tours here which would be really cool! But after 4-hours on a glacier and the temperature dropping, I actually pitied the people getting on the water, lol!

We saw some seals here!! They swam away before we could get a picture!

I loved how blue the water and ice were here! 

Right across the street from the glacier lagoon is Diamond Beach! Another black sand beach where pieces of the glacier wash up on the shore.

Ice on the beach! 

Boots, black sand and sea foam. This place is so cool. 

I love the ocean! I was ready for my bikini and a margarita ;)

After Andy pried me away from the beautiful crashing waves, we had another hour and a half or so drive to our hotel just outside Hofn. When we were driving up to the hotel, we noticed some waterfalls across the street and wondered if we'd be able to go up to them. After checking in, we asked the lady at the front desk if the property across the street was accessible - she said that it was! So much for the nap I was hoping to take... we can always sleep later right? We dropped off our bags and got right back in the car and headed just across the street to see how close to these waterfalls we could get...

So the adventures of Becca and Andy trespassing (but actually not, because 70% of Iceland is public land and private property is always very clearly marked... but this felt weird!)

Andy made a horsie friend! But then Andy got shocked by this electric fence.... OOPS! 

We encountered this fence on the way to the waterfall... is it electric? It sure looks like it could be.... Andy takes one for the team (and for the sake of our adventure) but luckily, this one wasn't turned on! We then hopped this fence :P

On our way up! 

Andy took a different route than I did! I decided to go up the center! 

I lost Andy for a bit and got a little freaked out! This picture shows how far apart we wound up (can you find me??)! He was actually able to make his way over to me but he had to make a "sketchy jump" that I'm glad I didn't witness :P

This was about as high as we could safely go! 

I'm not pleased about this hop. lol

Once we climbed back down, it really started raining and we were getting soaked! We hurried back to the car only to have me get back out again in the pouring rain and deal with the gate... can't let the sheepies out!

After showering, we went down for happy hour at the bar (hurray for $12 cocktails!!) and then had dinner in the hotel restaurant. We had originally thought we'd go into town for dinner, but the hotel restaurant looked really good and we were tired! Another really expensive dinner, but the food was amazing and I'm 100% sure we would have paid the same price for any restaurant in town. By 8:30, I was almost falling asleep in my dinner! That bad night's sleep was finally catching up to me! We called it an early night and I slept like a rock after what was definitely one of my most favorite days in Iceland!