The highlight of our Iceland trip was definitely backpacking the Fimmvörðuháls trail. We started at Thórsmörk (which is named after Thor) and Goðaland (land of the Gods), walked across a glacier, climbed the youngest mountain (Magni), camped in an A-frame hut with people from all over the world, and finished the hike by passing about 26 waterfalls. It was the most amazing and breathtaking hike I’ve ever done.

We left our car in Hella at the long term parking lot and got on a crazy four-wheel drive bus. The bus drove us up to Thorsmork; we crossed several rivers in the bus and made a few stops along the way. The first stop was at Seljalandsfoss. We were excited to see this awesome waterfall because it is one of the few that you can walk behind. Blake and I knew that we would be stopping here again and didn’t want to start a two day backpacking trip getting wet so we didn’t walk behind it. It was amazing and you can see it right from the main road. We then headed up the F-road; all F-roads require four-wheel drive so this is why we had to get on this bus. Next time we go to Iceland, I would love to rent a bigger vehicle that can drive all these roads. We made a quick stop to look at Eyjafjallajökull (Jokull means glacier in Icelandic).

After our two quick stops, we made it to Basar and began our trek. Honestly, Thorsmork was one of the most breathtaking place I’ve ever seen. I was stopping about every 10 feet to take more photos. I think I ended up with over 1000 from just our backpacking trip alone. It’s a quick ascend up the mountain so stopping to take photos was necessary. There were a couple sections of the trail that were a little sketchy: one was a ridge line that had pretty big drop offs on both sides and the other was a steep drop off on one side that required using a cable to hold on to.

Once you reach the top of the green mountainside, you are greeted with a stark contrast in scenery of black and red lava rock. This area blew my mind! There was a short walk on flat ground and then it was straight up the steep hill. This part was definitely the most steep and sketchy. At one point, it felt like we were basically hiking straight uphill. There were some cables to hold on to. We saw a biker going down the hill and we thought he was crazy because of the steep grade.

The next portion of the hike was absolutely unreal. It felt like we were on a different planet. The contrast between the black lava rock and the white snow was amazing. We were lucky for this portion because it was fairly clear and we could see where we were heading. We talked to a guy at the hut who had done this section a couple hours before us and he said that the fog was insane and he could barely see 10 feet in front of him. We were thankful that we could see and enjoy the amazing craters. The snowfields here are between two major glaciers and where Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010 causing major disruption in air traffic in Europe. We found Magni and Modi, which may just be the youngest mountains (craters) in the world. Because we weren’t in a huge rush and it was so clear, we decided that we should summit Magni. It was a short little ascend and then we were at the top! It was awesome.

After crossing many snowfields, we finally reached our home for the night. When we were planning this trip, we decided that we didn’t want to carry our tent if there were huts to stay in. I reserved our spots at the Baldvinsskáli hut. We had a fun evening at the hut visiting with people from all over the world; we met a nice guy from Switzerland, Sweden, France, and different states in the US. It was fun to share a love for nature with people from all over. We didn’t sleep too well because there were 20 people in the tiny upstairs of the A-frame hut. The room got so so hot and sweaty and smelly and musty. I ended up getting up around 4AM to go out to the cute little A-frame bathroom and walked around a little outside to get some fresh air.

We woke up fairly early packed up our gear and hit the trail. We followed the Skoga river all the way to Skogafoss. This part of the trail also blew my mind. We ended up passing about 26 waterfalls that all varied in size. We were stopped at one of the first waterfalls we saw and a couple people blazed by us on their way to the hut without stopping to see the waterfall. We thought they were crazy for not stopping but quickly realized they didn’t stop because they had been passing waterfalls all morning. By the time we reached the lower waterfalls, we were stopping less and realized people probably thought the same of us.

The trail ends at the iconic Skogafoss. It was crazy to go from seeing ~20 people along the trail to seeing hundreds of people. We took a few photos at Skogafoss and had a few hours to kill before our bus was scheduled to pick us up so we headed to the restaurant to get burgers! The burgers were the perfect ending to the most unbelievable trail. When I think back on the trail, I sometimes don’t believe that we were actually there because it was so beautiful. I’m already ready to go back and do this again- except next time I want to do more backpacking and add more miles!