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Saturday 27th August 1977
Yesterday, the first proper day of our guided walk in Iceland, we arrived at the Sveinstindur hut near the western edge of Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest ice cap. We are to stay here for two nights.
Just after arrival at the Sveinstindur Hut |
Today’s itinerary directs that we ascend the remaining 1150 feet (350m) to the top of Sveinstindur mountain (3585 feet, 1093m), one of the most magnificent viewpoints in Iceland. It boasts panoramic views of Vatnajökull and five other ice caps, the twelve-mile-long lake Langisjór, winding rivers, hundreds of mountains, volcanoes, and distant horizons in all directions.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s bitter wind has brought terrible weather. Paul, the walk leader, reluctantly declares the day to be a ‘holiday’. The weather really is awful. We stay inside the hut where it sounds even worse because of rain drumming on the corrugated iron roof. Fortunately, nowadays, I can turn to the internet to pinch pictures of what we missed.
This is a total surprise to me. I had absolutely no idea what it could be like up there until I saw these. Even if we had made it, visibility would have been nothing like this. The first picture looks east towards Vatnajökull, the second in the opposite direction.
Views from Sveinstindur |
The hut is small for the incarceration of thirteen people, but we have to accept that Paul knows best. At one end, a bridge school has started. Others read books. Some, complaining of a restless night, go back to sleep. One by one, even those who are awake get back in their sleeping bags to keep warm.
I join in card games for a while, and then, for something to do and to escape the state of lethargy into which most have fallen, I go for water, twice. This involves a ten minute walk each way, up a hill, down again and then across a kind of beach beside some flooded mud flats, and then over another promontory to a trickling stream.
Ascending the hill takes no effort, you simply sail up in the wind, but returning is a step by step struggle against flying hailstones. Frequent back-to-the-wind rests are needed. On the final descent down to the hut you have to keep sitting down so as not to be blown away. It is the strongest wind I have ever experienced. At least it makes your hands so cold you cannot feel string of the bucket cutting into your fingers. What a pity we can’t use the gritty water from the nearer mud flats.
Although Sveinstindur mountain is hidden in cloud, the weather seems slightly better at lunch time, but by tea time it is desperate again. Apart from the business of cooking and washing up we continue to vegetate inside the hut.
The huts are maintained by parishes for use by shepherds during the October sheep round-up. The remoteness and distances involved make it necessary to do this on horseback, so the huts are both stables and human quarters.
At Sveinstindur, the single hut doubles up for both purposes, the human area at the rear being raised by three or four feet to form a sleeping platform. I get a spot on the lower floor. It would be a lot warmer if we had a horse, as the Irving Berlin song makes clear:
The snow is snowing and the wind is blowingThe other well-known Irving Berlin song composed during his secret, anonymous and undocumented holiday with Icelandic sheep herders was:
But I can weather the storm
What do I care how much it may storm
I’ve got my horse to keep me warm…
I’m,
putting on my jumper,
putting on my jumper,
putting on my jumper...
Fred Astaire was scripted to sing this in the film Top Hat but refused on the grounds that traditional Icelandic jumpers are inelegant and wearing three made him too hot for dancing.
There are warming mugs of cocoa at bedtime. Why do those with the
weakest bladders bag the spots furthest from the door so they have to
pick their way in pitch blackness over the lumps of snoring
sleeping bags strewn across the floor? They risk falls, injuries and very abusive language.
* * *
For the orienteers amongst us, here is a 1:250,000 map of the area in
1977 (four miles to the inch or 2.5 km to the centimeter). The blue arrows indicate
the positions of the first four huts, with Sveinstindur centrally
towards the top. The first picture above looks east towards where ‘Siujökull’
is written on the map, and the second in the opposite direction along
the ridge of ‘Graenifjallgardur’. Our trek will later continue to the
south of this ridge (click here for a greatly enlarged version of the map).
(next part)
I would be delighted to hear from anyone who was there.