the cassandra pages

Skaftafell

Skaftafell. Pastel on paper, 23" x 18". (c) 2016 Elizabeth Adams

I've been missing Iceland, so I made a painting. Working on this pastel for the past four or five days has immersed me again in the autumn tundra vegetation and the breathtaking mountains near Vatnajokull, the largest glacier in Iceland (and also in Europe), where we were a little more than a year ago. As you can see in that previous post, the glacier is beyond these peaks, hidden by the clouds, but now and then they would part, and we could see it shining, so bright it almost hurt our eyes.

This view was from a hiking trail in the Skaftafell National Park, where we had climbed to see a famous waterfall, and then continued up onto the mountain above it to the west. I was a little reluctant to do this additional climb, and when I think of what I would have missed, it makes me cringe! We only encountered four or five other hikers on this leg of the trek, and we were alone at the top for nearly an hour. This is looking northeast; to the west the view looks down over a vast river-like glacier in the next valley; to the south is the huge black sand glacial outwash plain stretching for miles to the sea.

Here's the sketch that was the underlayer for the painting, which I like too.

I've been feeling word-less lately, so there haven't been many blog posts. But I've been busy in the studio; this is the second large-scale painting in two weeks, and I've been doing a lot of sewing this summer too, and working on two new books for Phoenicia. Lately I've had a little trouble with my back and it's been difficult to play the piano, but I can stand up and play the flute, so I've been practicing my old instrument a bit. And there is all that fabulous late summer produce to eat: we've had beautiful Ontario peaches, Quebec blueberries and strawberries, perfect corn-on-the-cob and tomatoes full of sunlight.

Sometimes it feels better to just make things and not talk too much.

It's still hot here, and I can hardly believe it's almost September. Have you had a good summer? Are you looking forward to fall?

Road Trip 13: The Black Beach at Vik

After coming down from the promontory, past the cliffs full of seabirds, the tall blooming angelica, the sheep on their rocks, the car left by young men who had been convinced they could drive to the top but ended up having to walk, just like us...after all of this, we drove out of Vik and around the back of the long weird hill we had just climbed, toward the glacier and then away from it again, following a road along the other side of the promontory, past a church, past small houses with Icelandic horses grazing in their yards, down to a parking lot bordered by low dunes.

It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The beach, absolutely black and made of tiny round stones in graduated sizes like pearls, smaller and smaller as you walked closer to the ocean, glistened like caviar. The waves thundered as they broke, swept onto the black sand and retreated in a pattern of brilliant white lace.

To the right, the famous pierced rock peninsula called Dyrhólaey:

On our left, the tall standing rocks iconic to Vik: legend says that they were trolls who were turned to stone.

And behind us, the rock wall made of columnar basalt, and a famous natural cave crowned by studlaberg as beautiful as any carved cathedral, and guarded by a cacophonous colony of nesting birds above it in the cliffs. (See the small figures of people below, for scale.)

Unusually for Iceland, a sign had warned that the surf here was dangerous, and to be very careful when approaching the cave - and to do so only at low tide. The tide was out, so we were able to walk all along the beach, but the waves were definitely unpredictable and caught my toes twice when I was concentrating on close-up photos - so I don't think the signs were kidding.

On an island of extraordinary places surely this is one of the most beautiful; the waves and the black sands feel like they've entered me and won't let go.

Road Trip 12: Climbing at Vik

We left Skaftafell and drove back across the Myrdalssandur to Vik, the southernmost village on the Icelandic mainland, reaching it just after dark. The small fishing settlement looked like a metropolis after the uninhabited desert we had been in for the past few days: full of lights, homes, even some places of business. After putting our stuff in the guesthouse where we had rented sleeping bag accommodations for the night, we headed to the local gas station/convenience store/restaurant for some supper -- burgers, fries, and a couple of Gull draft beers -- then took showers and went to bed, because we planned to rise early and climb the promontory overlooking the village, as well as visiting the town's famous beach.

Vik must be located in one of the most beautiful spots on earth, on the edge of the sea near the  Myrdalsjokull glacier, but underneath that glacier lurks the deadly volcano Katla. Katla is well overdue for an eruption - the past one was in 1918 and the longest period between eruptions was 95 years. Furthermore, each of the three previous eruptions of Ejafjallajokull were followed by eruptions of Katla. If Katla were to erupt, Vik could be destroyed by a glacial flood. There are periodic drills where the townspeople take shelter at the highest point, the church, because it is the only place likely to be above such a flood if it should ever occur. But a flood might not be the worst of it; Katla's eruptions have been of a violent magnitude from VEI-4 (that's the Volcanic Explosivity Index) to VEI-6, the latter comparable to Mt Pintatubo in 1991. Katla is monitored regularly, but while earthquake tremors have been frequent, the expected eruption has not yet occured.

But on that particular morning, Vik was peaceful and beautiful. We decided to forego breakfast at the guesthouse and just get some rolls and coffee before our hike, because we had to make a ferry crossing some distance away in the early afternoon.

Immediately after parking our car, we had company as we started up the long hill.

As we climbed, the view just got more and more spectacular, as the glacier, shining under a clear sky, was revealed behind the local hills.

Like the sheep, it seemed easy to feel oblivious to any danger other than falling off the edge.

Birds nesting in the cliffs cried and swooped in arcs above us, the glaciers shone, and back toward the east, the sea stretched out along the sands beyond the diminishing houses of the town, still asleep under the volcano.

Road Trip 11: Vatnajokull/Skaftafell: Glimpses of Glacial Peaks

We climbed up above Svartifoss, higher and higher, and began to get little glimpses of the Vatnajokull ice cap that had been hidden by the clouds.

Ahead of us to the north were these peaks, and if we had started earlier we could have gone much closer to them. Our goal was a nearby peak, less high than these.

From the top, looking south across the Skeidararsandur glacial outwash plain. That's a storm on the horizon. This was a Japanese couple we had seen before. After they left, we were alone up there and never saw anyone else until we had rejoined the main trail, halfway back down.

And looking to the west, across the vast Skeidararjokull glacier, with the tundra in its autumn magnificence.

We were given brief glimpses of the high mountain peaks at the top of Vantajokull; it was so beautiful, and so quiet, that you could almost forget that under this glacier lies Bardarbunga, one of the most active volcanic systems in Iceland.

 

Road Trip 10: Vatnajokull/Skaftafell: Svartifoss and Stuðlaberg

In the morning, still dark and drizzly, we drove just a few miles from Hof (just off the bottom right of this map) to reach the access road for the Skaftafell wilderness in the Vatnajokull National Park. From the road, we could see the Skaftafellsjokull glacier lying in its valley beneath the giant glacial cap, across the sands and tundra:

The parking lot was full, and tour buses bound for glacier walks were loading, but not too many people were actually around. We went into the visitors' center to look at the trail maps, and get the lay of the land. It was pretty cold and raw, but some native Icelanders in their Lopi sweaters seemed to barely feel it. The Japanese, on the other hand were bundled up in parkas and high-tech rainsuits from top to toe.

Concerned about the weather, we decided to climb up to the Svartifoss waterfall first, and if we had time later, to take the flat trail that ends very close to the Skaftafellsjokull glacier. As it turned out, we only did the first hike, but were very glad we'd made that choice. So we headed out in the opposite direction of the people above, to the north and west, up the mountain.

The mountains are split with gorges, each of which seemed to contain numerous waterfalls, cascading off precipitous cliffs skirted by the trail, mostly without ropes or rails, only an occasional warning:

Once we'd gained some height, we could begin to really appreciate the extent of the glacial outwash plain below, so large that we couldn't really see the sea beyond.

Finally we got our first glimpse of Svartifoss, the Black Falls:

We drew closer.

From the bluff on the right near the falls, a trail led down to its base.

These astonishing rock forms are columnar basalt, which results when an unusually thick basaltic lava flow cools and cracks. It's such an iconic feature of Icelandic landscapes that  national poets have written about it, painters have painted it, and architects have emulated the five-and-six-sided columnar forms in their buildings. But before I saw Svartifoss, one of the most famous and dramatic examples of columnar basalt in the world, I hadn't recognized what I was seeing in less-dramatic places. In fact, one of the drawings I had done a couple of years before was of columnar basalt, but I didn't even know it. (Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and the Giant's Causeway in Ireland are other examples of the same geologic structure.)

From Svartifoss we continued to the left, up the mountain, on steps formed from sections of the basalt, which looked just like ancient ruins.

I found out something interesting when looking for references to the Icelandic Stuðlaberg which is their much more beautiful name for columnar basalt. The word Stuðlar means pillar-stone or basaltic pillar and stafr, which means approximately the same thing. The Old Norse alphabet, or Runic Alphabet, contained straight lines also called pillars or staves. Studul is a characteristic of old Norse song, referring to its rock-fast form that allowed it to be committed to memory. I should ask Language Hat for more about these word origins, in which the early words for these basalt pillars seem to have become terms for unchangeable, steady forms that gave structure to oral Norse poetry and in music. And guess what? Even Icelandic knitting patterns draw their inspiration and name from studlaberg; it's part of the bedrock of Icelandic consciousness. Once I had made the connection, through Svartifoss, I saw it everywhere.

Road Trip 9: Hof

From behind the church at Hof, looking west.

After all this wildness, I thought you might be interested in some human habitation. Hof, where we stayed on our second night, is a small cluster of farms and houses tucked under the shelter of towering cliffs. There's nothing else around, except perhaps a tiny isolated farm or two, for miles and miles. The location of the settlement is fairly high above the glacial outwash plain, and looks as though it would be protected from flooding.

looking east

and looking south, across the sands toward the ocean

I looked up the Icelandic word hof and found out that it descends from the Old Norse, hov, in turn descended from the proto-Germanic word hufą, which meant (1) a hill or elevated place, or (2) house, hall, estate. Hof was the same word in Old English, Old Friesan, Old Saxon, Old High Dutch, and Old German. I guess we can conclude that there has been a settlement here for a very long time -- maybe as much as a thousand years.

Today there is a turf church that was the last of its kind to be built in Iceland - in the 1880s and recently reconstructed - and a churchyard with mounded graves. The Hofskirkja church is maintained by the National Museum of Iceland, but also functions still as a parish church. The other buildings include a few homes and farms, a couple of guesthouses, some sort of school or daycare center, and the modern hotel where we stayed. Except for the yellow church and a very modern house up above the settlement (below), pretty much all of the buildings in Hof are white with red roofs. (If you follow the hotel link there's a video that shows the area better than my pictures do.) It was strange to drive up the road in the rain, enter a door, and find ourselves in a low-slung, modern, Scandinavian-style hotel that felt like an upscale IKEA showroom: white walls; grey fabrics and dark grey wood and stone; bold, brightly-colored art; sleek contemporary fixtures.

It was also pretty expensive, and the dinner price turned out to be more than we wanted to spend. Instead, we showered, soaked in the hotel's hot tub, took a sauna, and then drove half an hour west in the now-pouring rain and complete darkness to a gas station-with-cafe we had noticed on our way out. This oasis in the wilderness sold souvenirs, maps, chocolates, snacks, dipped ice cream (Icelanders eat ice cream year round) and had a lunch counter and tables -- where we saw some of the same travelers we'd seen earlier in the day. We ordered lamb burgers and fries, and two cold Gull beers, and were as contented as a couple of fat grazing sheep.

I'm sure that there are trolls in those cliffs, aren't you? Nevertheless, we slept well, and after a similar but more lavish breakfast than the previous morning, left Hof to set off for nearby Skaftafell, and a hike in the Vatnajokull National Park.

Road Trip 8: Another Glacial Lagoon

At Jökulsárlón (top right in the map above) we turned around and headed back west, across the Breidamerkursandur glacial outwash plain. For a long time, we could see this glacier in the distance:

...but it was only when we got close that we noticed a gravel road leading in toward it. A drizzly rain was starting to fall, and clouds were rolling in, but we decided to see if we could get a better view. The road led all the way in to a hill overlooking the glacial tongue, and when we got out and approached the crest of the hill on foot, this sight greeted us:

Another glacial lagoon! But this time, we were a lot closer to the glacier itself, and could not only see the glacier much better, but also its relationship to the lake and to the icebergs, and the terminal and lateral moraines. Apart from three or four hikers and a couple of photographers, we were alone. As the map shows, there is a walking path (indicated in red) that goes from this lagoon all the way over to Jökulsárlón. That would have been a long hike even if it were morning instead of late afternoon, and not raining, so we noted it as a possibility for another time.

The pictures here can't adequately convey the size of this place or the height and massiveness of the glacier itself; I felt awed to be this close to it. The crevasses you can see in this picture are far deeper than the height of a person, and the iceberg at left is the size of a multi-storey house.

When the steady drizzle turned to real rain, and the light became flat, we hiked back to our car and headed for our night's lodging in the little settlement of Hof, still a good drive to the west.

Road Trip 7: Jökulsárlón, the Ice Beach

The North Atlantic at Jökulsárlón is monochromatic, but full-range. The volcanic sands, in various stages of tidal wetness, shade from absolute black to medium grey; the sky is the color of doves; the ocean, mercury; and against these shades the whiteness of the waves is of an almost-blinding intensity.

Within this black-and-white world, the transparent and translucent blues of the glacial ice shine with a strange and compelling otherness: they seem to belong to the sky more than the land or sea, but only to our idea of sky, not the one that exists here. But once the ice is cast ashore, both in huge chunks sculpted by the waves and tide, and pitted or polished pieces the size of a head or hand, it becomes crystal: glass sculptures on black velvet stretching for miles along the lacy, foaming edge of the sea.

We walked along this astonishing beach for an hour while gulls shrieked overhead and a pair of seals played around the icebergs, enchanted by the forms of the ice and compelled by the fact that we were touching pieces of the ancient glacier, as the ocean slowly licked it back to water. I put my hand into the ocean; it was very cold but not as painfully numbing as I'd expected. And, instinctively, I raised a handful of black sand to my lips and touched it with my tongue, wanting to taste its salty grittiness and somehow link my body to this place.

Road Trip 6: Jökulsárlón, the glacial lagoon

By noon of the second day, we reached our furthest-east destination: Jökulsárlón, the glacial lagoon at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, part of the Vatnajökull ice cap.

aerial view from Encyclopedia Brittanica

This glacial lake, 200 feet deep, developed relatively recently (in the mid 1930s) after warming temperatures caused the glacier to retreat from the ocean. It is filled with icebergs that calve off the front of the glacier and slowly float out into the lagoon and eventually to the sea.

The first settlers arrived in Iceland around AD 870, when the edge of the tongue of Breiðamerkurjökull glacier was about 12 miles further north of its present location. During the Little Ice Age between 1600 and 1900, with cooler temperatures prevailing in these latitudes, the glacier had grown by up to about .62 miles from the coast at Jokulsá River, by about 1890. When the temperatures rose between 1920 and 1965, the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier tongue rapidly retreated, continually creating icebergs of varying size, thus creating a lagoon in its wake around 1934–35. The lake is about 200 metres (660 ft) deep where the glacier snout originally existed. Glacial moraines became exposed on both sides of the lake. In 1975, the lake was about 8 km² (3.1 sq mi) in area and now it reportedly stands at 18 km² (6.9 sq mi) at the edge of the glacier tongue. (wikipedia)

Jökulsárlón on every list of "natural wonders to see in your lifetime" and was the only place we went where we encountered other people in any numbers. It has also been the setting for a number of movies, including a James Bond thriller. Later that day we visited the other glacial lake that you can see in the far left of the picture above - it can't been seen from the road, and we were there with only four or five other people.

It was midday when we arrived at the lagoon, with bright sunlight shining on the fantastic blue and white ice forms in the aquamarine water, and we thought how fortunate we were, because the Jökulsárlón webcam had showed socked-in fog all the previous week.

A pair of seals played right in front of us. We joked that they were probably paid (or at least fed a few extra fish) -- but seals seemed pretty prevalent on this part of the coast.

The tourists included this Japanese bride in her wedding dress, posing for photographs.

After an hour, clouds moved in, and it seemed like a storm was gathering. Most of the other visitors left. We stayed for another half hour, and then drove a little further to the east, looking out at the sea.

Road Trip 5: Skeiðarársandur and Vatnajökull

The palisade of Lómagnúpur forms a corner pillar at the far western edge of Öræfi, dominating the view as you approach, but preventing any glimpse beyond. But when you pass it, what awaits stuns you into silence.

To the left (middle and right in the picture above) stretches the huge expanse of the glacier Skeidarasjökull, completely filling the valley like the rivers of ice I had always heard glaciers to be, but never before seen.

In the distance ahead were other bits of glacial ice cap, shining in the sun. And all around us stretched Skeiðarársandur: the glacial black sand desert, crisscrossed by rivers of meltwater, flat, vast, endless, all the way to the unseen sea.

We drove and drove, past other rivers of ice, past glaciers in hanging valleys that would one day become cirques, past small groups of white swans swimming in ice-cold water on black sands.

It was cold, we were completely alone, and the unobstructed wind blew without ceasing.

Small gravel roads lead in closer to the glaciers. Passenger cars like ours are actually prohibited from leaving the paved roads, but in some instances we felt OK driving a short ways on the gravel. Most of the terrain was like what you see above: endless, a seeming wasteland of sand with a sort of terrible beauty. But in other places, the tundra had gained a foothold, and was glorious in its own fall foliage. I was mesmerized by the glaciers themselves, and the way they seemed to glow as if illuminated from within; this place where we paused was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

 (I'll be away this weekend but will resume this travelogue next week. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting, both here and on FB.)