Glaciers. They're cool.

[camrogers]

Mýrdalsjökull Glacier, Iceland, 1st August 2010.

In total we only spent two hours on the ice, but it's possible to hire a guide for 10. Next time, definitely. I also think I might have gotten a short article out of it.

Unless you're climbing waterfalls glacial ice tends to be pretty uniform, which means you can just whack an ice axe wherever you like and climb. Less strategic than rock climbing, and the views are spectacular. This is something I'd love to be able to do regularly.

I'm coming back here, and soon I hope. Sometime in the next couple of years. AND I'M BRINGING AT LEAST ONE OF YOU WITH ME.

Comments

[andricongirl.livejournal.com]

wow. love that last pic, devoid of colour. it's such an alien landscape

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

I'll show you the rest, properly treated, once I get up to writing a proper post on it all. I was standing there, looking around, and it broke my heart a little that there's just no way to properly capture and convey the feeling of being *in* that environment.

Those black mounds are naturally occurring ice mounds that form as a result of grit particles becoming trapped in the ice, perverting a waterflow and forming the expanding nucleus of a kind aberrant, upward thrusting ice accretion. Normally they look like ice. The black is ash from the E15 eruption, so it's uncommon.

Not entirely sure I explained their formation correctly, but I'm sure Google could iron it out.

Short story: frickin' awesome. Highly recommended. Two hours just isn't enough.

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

Cam, that looks absolutely amazing. If you're serious about dragging more people back there some time, consider me signed-up. :)

As for the global warming thing -- settlement of the region 1000 years ago coincides with the Medieval Warm Period. It was colder for 1000 years, then spiked like never before at the end of the 20th century. About 4 years ago, I was working with some folks who were applying high performance computing to model geomorphology, and they predicted more/larger volcano/earthquake activity in Iceland due to relatively sudden thinning of the ice. Right on spec, we have *clears throat* Eyejaffayaskull.
Whatever the case...the huge, flat valley you've beautifully captured in your first two photos above demonstrate how the constant ebb-and-flow of the glacier over the centuries has bulldozed the place into fine grit. I can't stand the cold but this, I want to experience in person. :)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I was going to say this. There's plenty of evidence for fairly significant temperature fluctuations since the Iron Age (for example there's several stories from different parts of the Germanic world about the North Sea being frozen enough to walk on, which from their distribution and linguistic markers would correlate with the spread of the Germanic peoples across Northern Europe). Doesn't mean that global warming isn't happening now, or that it isn't manmade - the changes are of around the same magnitude but have happened over a much shorter timescale.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

It wasn't cold. 14-15 degrees maybe. Had my jacket open, didn't need gloves. And I am serious.

When I get back I need to clear the credit card and start squirreling away cash again, but if I keep writing articles that accelerates the timetable quite a bit. Touch wood.

I also need to get a driver's license.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

They're not nearly as white nor icey as I had imagined (seen before).

If you are planning to return, why to schedule it for winter and do the Salzberg Ice Caves. That is something I'd love to see.

Also: SNOW!

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

The glacier is still partially ashed out. Will be until the next decent snow sluices it off. Rare seeing it like that.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

(It's basically right next-door to E15 the Unpronounceable.)

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Will be until the next decent snow sluices it off.

Or global warming melts it.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Our guide called bollocks on that. The glacier loses 50m a year, but it's been shrinking and expanding for the thousand years since settlement. When settlers first arrived the glacier was 50-75% smaller than it is now.

[ed-dirt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also heard from the locals that the glaciers are retracting the normal amounts every summer and then expanding the normal amounts every winter up there.

But I was also told that fish not normally seen that far North are showing up in Icelandic waters (which is a good thing because they can catch/eat them) so even if the effects that they are experiencing from Global Warming at present are all pluses at present, they are feeling it.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

For sure. He just didn't seem especially fazed by the shrinkage is all. In fact there's a chance when Ketla(?) erupts the lava flow my roll right over the glacier. In his opinion there were worse thing to happen than losing a glacier.