The trek begins

Sebastian and I exited the bus and did a quick equipment check — boots, waterproof pants, jackets, hats, gloves, packs, deck of cards, freeze-dried meals and enough Snickers bars to resuscitate six diabetics from hypoglycemia. In the warden’s hut, where prospective hikers check in, the warden eyed me appraisingly. “Weather at the pass is not great,” he warned. “Visibility is poor.” He then asked about our gear. The moment had the somber feeling of a border crossing, as if we were on the cusp of entering a foreign land, which, in fact, we were. All of this, by the way, is typical at the start of the Laugavegur Trail; and wardens often turn people away.

The trail was well marked, the warden explained, with poles every hundred yards or so. And there were plenty of other hikers. The only dicey area was the first mountain pass, just before the hut at Hrafntinnusker, where we would spend our first night. Snow and fog sometimes obscured visibility here. “You can always turn around or dial 112 on your cellphone in an emergency,” he said. I hesitated. Several years back, a young Israeli died on this very pass, in a freak summer blizzard; and he wasn’t the only one to perish. “We usually have one death every two years,” another warden said.

“We’ll take it one kilometer at a time,” I told myself.

At the trailhead, I tried to take some weight off Sebastian’s pack. He had won the state champion in the 1,500-meter for his age group, but running on a track and shouldering a pack over mountains are different tasks entirely. Sebastian gently pushed me away. “Don’t think of us as father and son, just as extremely good friends, and equals,” he said. The expression on his face was so proud and earnest that I had no choice but to agree. And so we began our ascent to Hrafntinnusker.

We climbed up a series of gentle slopes through a vaguely lunar landscape. (It was readily apparent why, in 1960s, astronauts trained in Iceland for their visit to the moon.) We soon gazed down into Vondugil, the so-called Wicked Valley — a place that shepherds historically avoided because of its evil spirits — and which seemed aptly named, as it lay shrouded in a gloomy mist. Sebastian was electrified by it all. When we saw puffs of vapor, in the distance, he bounded up the mountain until we discovered a blowhole where steam hissed. Moments later, he yelled: “Look Dad, look!” I was doubtful about what could warrant such exuberance, until I turned and saw a pond bubbling to a boil.

As we neared the mountain pass, the rocky terrain vanished, giving way to snow and ice. We could have been in Antarctica. The trail was marked with tall stone cairns, which flickered in and out of view, as low-lying clouds swept over us. Instinctively, we reached out and held hands. I felt Sebastian squeeze my fingers. I looked over at him — to make sure he was all right. His eyes were gleaming with determination.