We totally got checked out by a fox in the night!
In the morning, there were delicate little prints thoroughly circling our tents. I thought I’d heard walking in the night but was too tired to wake up and look out.
Gratefully, it was a bright sunny morning and we woke up warm and dry.
We walked up the river and crossed it where it was wide and therefore shallowest. It was cold, and flowing strongly but smoothly, with a smooth sand and rock bottom, so it was by no means a scary ford.
Contrary to all instructions about fording rivers (always leave your boots on)- and there are good reasons for those instructions – I crossed barefoot. I spend most of my summers barefoot so my feet are hard and tough, and it was such a delight to be in sand and grass I couldn’t stand to be in my boots.
Then I stayed barefoot for a couple of hours, until we got into terrain full of scratchy bushes, and it was amazing.
Whole essays and poems could be written about the pleasure and reward of being barefoot, but I’ll restrain myself here.
After crossing, we backtracked on the sandy opposite bank of the river to skirt Klief, the fjord in our path, by climbing over the rocks at the sea’s edge. This was very beautiful, with the black rocks and peach sand. However, it would not be nearly so pleasant on a stormy day. After nipping around the base of the fjord we were on another beach (Aðalvík), and we crossed the river at the bottom of that valley and walked up the other side.
We were navigating with a topo map of the area, that had suggested routes and advice marked on it. Routes are different from paths. There’s a general direction you’re advised to take, but there are no walking paths worn down by frequent foot traffic.
We walked steadily and sometimes at a fair distance from each other, peacefully walking in the sun.
Our overall route was over the next fjord to Buðanes. There is another cliff edge route around the base of this fjord, but it is marked as impassable at high tide, which it was. The map also noted that you’d better move quick even at low tide, or you’ll be seriously f#$%ed when it goes underwater again- I forget the exact wording. The cliff-skirt route is considerably shorter, but we weren’t nearly on time for low tide. So it was over the top for us.
On the way we stopped for lunch by a little foss in the middle of the bushy field of blueberries, everywhere.
We encountered some mystery poop, as well. I can’t imagine what produced this. It’s still a mystery. Foxes are tiny, and while polar bears are known to occasionally swim over from Greenland, and this scat was pretty huge, it didn’t seem grand enough for the world’s biggest bear, nor likely. Could it be – a swan poop?
It was a long climb up. Climbing, or walking, on a trail is a different world from climbing or walking through vegetation.
It wasn’t exactly bushwhacking- the bushes weren’t that tall, but constantly lifting your feet up and over, and the small muscles constantly working to balance your feet as you place them on uneven ground, is fatiguing over time. It’s about the difference between walking on a sidewalk and climbing stairs. With nothing in their way on a sidewalk, your feet just swing forward with almost no effort and you can go forever. Just walking through the scrub was like climbing, and on top of that, we were climbing, and it was steep.
Happily, it was a fantastic day, clear and warm. Still, we climbed high enough to need to put cozy shirts back on. It was cold enough for some snow to survive the beating sun at the top. The snow was unexpected (in August) and refreshing. It was spring snow, grainy and heavy. We promptly made a small snowman.
Next there was another climb, over the next bump of desolation- the grey wasteland of plateau atop the fjord. There was a fantastic view, grey and hazy, over ridges of fjords, with the ocean eventually on both sides. It was a wild feeling to know that literally as far as we could see, there were no other people out there.
Leaving the plant zone and entering the rocky “tundra”(?) was a welcome change of terrain for our legs. We were vague on our exact location per the topo map in such a monochromatic, featureless field of rock, but we were headed down into the next valley between fjords. We had to go east in order to go west, because there was a clearly impassable area where the topo lines were all squeezed together. We had a discussion about steepness relative to how close topo lines appeared. Rather than walking all the way to the east where the route map suggested, I wanted to cut a little bit closer where the topo lines were only “pretty” close together, not “very” close.
So we popped out at the top of this:
As soon as we could see over this, we could mark exactly where we were, and it cleared a few things up. Topo lines “very” close together means a sheer vertical; topo lines “pretty” close together means very very steep. Still impassable.
We kept going east at the top of this stone amphitheater, although not as far as the map suggested. Where it seemed safe we started to zigzag down. It was crumbly, grainy orange dirt and rock, and it was definitely still too steep for comfort. We were fine, however, and we saw some interesting birds nesting in the scrub on the way down.
Back into the land of vegetation, here the bushes were very deep, and there were actual walking paths here and there that semed to be formed through the thickest stuff. Everywhere there were billions of blueberries. Literally. All the bushes were heavy with the clumps of blue fruit, and our entire view was carpeted with the reddish green plants. I could lean on the bank of the trail and stuff blueberries in my mouth for minutes without moving.
Down in the valley with still miles to go to the beach mouth, it was rough going, and wet; swampy. At the bottom of the valley, there was a pond in a marshy flat that had swans in it. Exhausted from the day’s hike, I hit the wall, dropped my pack, flopped over and declared we were camping right here. Everything looked the same, anywhere was as good as anywhere else.
We walked packless to Buðanes for the sunset. There is an abandoned settlement of houses and a church on the coast, all brightly painted and picturesque.
Some of the homes don’t seem so completely abandoned- locked up and accessorized with modern BBQs and yard appliances; perhaps they are maintained for vacation homes. It was a beautiful stroll in the late evening light, on winding paths that crossed many streams, to the little vacant town and the beach. We saw four seals lounging in the bay, and inspected another emergency hut. Far across the water, we could see Látrar, where we had started from yesterday, and it seemed amazing we had walked so far in one day.
So we started the day on a beach, and finished it on one, at sea level with a monster climb in between.
I slept beside my tent, set up in case it rained. It didn’t though, so I spent the night outside. The swans and loons farther down in the bottom of the valley were making an energetic racket, almost loud enough to keep me awake. Besides that, there was another kind of singing, a subtle, mesmerizing kind, that lasted all night, and in my sleep I knew it was the elves.
For more pictures of our 16th day in Iceland, click Extra Photos
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