{"id":796,"date":"2021-06-28T03:56:53","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T08:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=796"},"modified":"2023-12-26T21:36:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T02:36:44","slug":"sun-june-27-day-12-hikes-glacier-icebergs-vik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=796","title":{"rendered":"Day 12: Hikes, glacier, icebergs, & Vik"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Was a super busy day today. The sun was bright, no haze to be seen, lots of details in the mountains.\u00c2\u00a0Bob met us at the campsite, we planned the day\u00e2\u20ac™s activities over some tea, and then we were off in the heat of the day, climbing mountains and looking at waterfalls. I think there was another record set for temperatures today.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Morning\r\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac™s the view of the glacier and campground as we started our assent.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The literature on the waterfalls walk was a bit deceiving. Was to be an easy walk with a relatively small elevation. This proved not to be the case. Lots of effort to get up the steep angles on my part. Outer layers were being stripped off by everyone around, including ourselves. A year locked up and working from home has done nothing to help preserve my endurance. At long last, we made it to the top to get a photo of the main attraction waterfalls. Famous for its Basalt rock structure, apparently somewhat rare for waterfalls here. Another feature is that people can swim at the base of the falls. I am sure the glacial waters were very refreshing in the heat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Mountain\r\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac™s a photo of the falls from the high point in the hike to it. There are bathers down there near the rocks.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As we started to descent to the bottom of the falls our path turned very steep and to slippery gravel. My knee and leg at this point told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No way. If you attempt this, I will cause you such pain you will fall on your keaster and they will have to come an airlift you outta here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac™s pretty much a direct quote from my knee. So, at this point, I said good-bye to the boys as they descended and to take the opposite path back. I went down the way we came. Passing people with little kids, older folks with walking sticks, and people with already overheated and exhausted dogs on their way up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Once the boys made it back, we grabbed a quick lunch and refilled water bottles for our next adventure of the day: taking a Zodiac ride through the J\u00c3\u00b6kuls\u00c3\u00a1rlon Iceberg Lagoon. I decided to bail on this trip, I could not bare the idea of getting into one of those HUGE jump suits, I was still just way overheated from the walk. As we left the park and headed west to the J\u00c3\u00b6kuls\u00c3\u00a1rl\u00c3\u00b3n Iceberg Lagoon, we noticed the haze starting to appear again. By the time we arrived the visibility was very poor unless you were close to it. As we approached the lagoon\u00e2\u20ac™s bridge we were met with a surprise. You may have seen the photo of the large ice jam from the previous nights post. Well, today that was gone and a huge pile of icebergs were stacked up together and slowly making its way to the mouth of bay.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Icebergs\r\n
Again the lens was able to peer through the haze and pull out some details behind the icebergs.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The haze was blocking out the view of the glacier and pretty much all of the mountain behind it. If it weren\u00e2\u20ac™t for the icebergs, you might not realize a glacier was there at all. I sat in the RV, watching the people come and go waiting for the hazy vril to lift a bit. This place is super busy with these tours. When were here past there was only one tour group now there seems to be a few operating here. The sun peeked through the haze and went out and joined the throngs waiting out in the harbor taking selfies, skipping rocks, some shirtless people (must have been native Icelanders), and others photographing the the amazing scenes before us. I took 100 or more photos of the remaining icebergs and the birds hitching a ride on them in the bay. The blues of the ice are against the teal of the water are incredible, even on this hazy day here at the lagoon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Birds\r\n
My lens was able to cut through some of the gray has to capture some of the small mountain behind the iceberg. Birds seem to be pretty content with their slow speed toward the ocean.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"Boat\r\n
Add this one to illustrate the scale of the icebergs. Had to really rely on the zoom lens to get these guys.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"Icebergs\r\n
Along with the birds, a couple of crazy people decided to kayak among the floats.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I saw a cute scene of a couple of male Eider Ducks pursuing a lone female. The males were both cooing at her and she just kept swimming away from them. The males started doing this dance in the water, raising their bodies up out of the water, throwing their head and necks back and puffing out their chests, and cooing almost like a morning dove. Still, she kept swimming away seemingly uninterested in their song or dance.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Eider\r\n
The male Eider Duck singing and doing his dance for female who could care less and just wants to get away.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It was about 5:30 and we had a little over two hours to drive to get to Vik for the night. As we drove away from the Lagoon, and away from the ocean, the landscape cleared up a bit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Mountain\r\n
This is one of my favorite mountains. It was invisible as we approached it. Only when we were right under it did any of its details appear.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But it wasn\u00e2\u20ac™t long before it changed yet again. As they say here the don\u00e2\u20ac™t like this wether just wait 15 mins and it will change. About an hour or so into the drive, we could see some kind of weather changes ahead of us in the distance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Dark\r\n
There were rain trails that the camera didn\u00e2\u20ac™t pick up falling on the glacier.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"\"\r\n
The heavy clouds just hugged this mountain tight and was still there after we drove past it. There is weather ahead for sure.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The clouds over the glaciers started getting darker, there were clouds clinging around mountains as if there was a smoldering fire consuming their tops. Before we knew it we were getting a few sprinkles here and there. As we grew closer to the city the wind started to pick up and the whole place was covered in dark low hanging clouds.The iconic white church with red roof stood out on the hill like a beacon in this storm.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Large\r\n
Here the clouds are clinging the tops of these massive hills. There is a fence line at their base. Hopefully they will help you see just how massive these landforms are.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"Rocky\r\n
Every thing in Vik was obscured by dense cloud cover. The landmark mountain that leads to the beach was just not to be seen.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Bob came over after settling into his place, came to pick us up and we went to get some food. After dinner he took us to see where he was staying, a chalet-style place perched on a hill near the mountain. He can see the church from his window. With the wind blustering around us and a light rain tapping at our windows, we finally ended our day at about 12:00 midnight.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Church\r\n
The landmark church taken from below in the campground. There is a HUGE mountain behind it that was invisible all night long.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was a super busy day today. The sun was bright, no haze to be seen, lots of details in the mountains.\u00c2\u00a0Bob met us at the campsite, we planned the day\u00e2\u20ac™s activities over some tea, and then we were off in the heat of the day, climbing mountains and looking at waterfalls. I think there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,7,115],"tags":[241,147,207,117,149,148],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-193","category-iceland","category-iceland-2021","tag-glacier","tag-icebergs","tag-ijakulsarlon","tag-ring-road","tag-vatnajokull","tag-vik","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}