July 2: Thorsmörk/Eyjafjallajökull and Katla glaciers

by Geoff Hart

Today we took "super jeeps" to the misleadingly named Thorsmörk (“Thor's Forest”). Though this wide outwash valley between three large glaciers (Eyjafjallajökull,Tindfjalljökull, and Myrdalsjökull) is certainly lushly verdant, it’s not particularly forested. The superjeeps are basically semi-monster trucks -- highway-legal but the kind of vehicles that give urban Hummer owners an inferiority complex. They’re much taller than ordinary vehicles to allow them to mount tires wide enough to ford a river up to a foot or two deep without submerging the undercarriage or tipping over, and have powerful high-torque engines for navigating the steep and tough terrain in the interior of Iceland. On the highway, this makes them sway gently back and forth like a boat passing over waves and needing constant gentle corrections of the tiller. They also have variable tire inflation so that once they hit the backcountry roads, the driver can slightly deflate the tires to increase their footprint and increase traction. Some have a full central tire inflation system, which allows tire pressure to be controlled from the cab; ours used a less expensive system that required manual deflation followed by manual reinflation using a compressor built into the vehicle. Here’s Shoshanna standing beside one in the hotel parking lot:

Along the way to Thorsmörk, we stopped at a site where four glacier-fed waterfalls plunge more than 100 feet from the edge of the lava mountains that flank this side of the valley. Seljalandsfoss, the first (easternmost) initially seems to be most spectacular, as it breaks into three semi-separate streams and has undercut the cliff wall so much that you can walk behind the falling water. And it is indeed lovely. Here’s a look at the falls from the side, showing both the separate streams and the opening behind them:

We actually saw Gljúfurarbui, the fourth waterfall, at the end of the day, when we stopped for a final bathroom breakon our way home, but I’m including it here because it’s part of the same site. Gljúfurarbui is a partially concealed gem (that is, from a distance, you only see the top of the falls) that beats Seljalandsfoss hands-down for coolness. As you approach, you initially only see the top of the waterfall, which plunges into a large crack in the cliff faces and emerges below it as a small stream. But when you look at it from in front of the crack, you can see the plunging water, and if you don your rain gear (which you’ll need because of the heavy mist blowing into your face) and slip through the crack, wading through some of the shallow parts of the outgoing flow, you’re treated to a veritable cathedral of light and falling water. It’s quite stunning. Here are the two aforementioned views:

The overall geography of Thorsmörk is that of a broad valley, surrounded on the northern, southern, and eastern sides by glacier-capped volcanoes and on the west by the North Atlantic Ocean. Water flows down from melting glaciers and rain into an outwash plain composed of gravel and cobbles of a wide range of sizes. As the smaller streams twist down from the slopes, pushing gravel out of their way or being in turn diverted by the gravel, they wind through the flat valley bottom, merging and diverging again to create what are called “braided streams”. Here’s one view from the upper reaches near the end of the valley, below the Katla (“kettle”) ice cap, and another from the lower reaches, within a couple miles of the ocean:

Getting to the head of the valley requires a ride of a couple hours along gravel roads. You need to cross many meltwater steams, which requires slowing down to a crawl and feeling your way across the water to avoid any unfortunate incidents. Our driver, Stephaniya, did a great job, following her brother Edward’s lead jeep. We paused once to deflate the tires.

Our first major stop, just before lunch, was at a former “end moraine lagoon”. An end moraine is the chewed up rock that a glacier pushes ahead of it, and in this case, the glacier was a tongue of ice descending from Eyjafjallajokull. By coincidence of topography and the glacier’s flow, the moraine formed a complete arc across the bottom end of a valley. The resulting blockage of drainage created a "lagoon" from the meltwater that flowed from the glacier, and the lagoon persisted happily until 2010, when Eyjafjallajökull erupted. The resulting heat created unimaginable quantities of meltwater, which swept down upon the lagoon and erased the center of the end moraine. Here’s what’s left of the moraine today (two pincers that fail to seal the end of the lagoon), and a photo of the wall of the lagoon to give a sense of scale:

The huge volume of water, released almost instantly when the end moraine failed under the pressure, roared its way down the valley of Thorsmörk, wiping out roads and bridges and flooding much of the land between the valley and the sea, which injury was subsequently compounded by the insult of a fall of ash from the volcano that buried the land in 1/3 to 1 foot of ash. Today, what with glacial recession due to global warming and the loss of water caused by the eruption, there’s only a small tongue of the glacier that still extends into this valley, but it’s well worth a look. In the following image, for a sense of scale, the cave at the base from which the river emerges (the dark crescent at the bottom of the ice) is at least 2 people tall at its center:

Our last stop was at Básar, a campground near the eastern end of the valley. There are many campsites scattered throughout this area, as this is a hugely popular camping destination for both Icelanders and tourists. It’s quite lovely, with steep mountain slopes on all sides and a surprising number of trees compared with most other areas we've been. Mostly, they're small birches, but they nonetheless create enough of a forest to make the “mörk” part of Thorsmörk seem more reasonable. There's flowing water on all sides, from the outwash plain and the Vatnajökull icecap on one side to narrow mountain streams on the other. The Katla volcano, whose name means kettle, lies high above the valley, under the ice cap. Here’s a look at the end of the valley, where the braided streams begin working their way down from the icecap above Katla:

I don’t camp anymore, but if I did, this would be a great place for it. There’s also a short but steep hike up from the picnic area to a great overlook of the end of the valley, with pleasant forest vegetation and all kinds of funky plants: orchids, lycopods, and an odd-looking plant named Angelicawith lurid purple (carpels?) that make it look a bit like skunk cabbage.

On the way home, we stopped at Stakksholtsgjá, a deep slot canyon that winds its way quite some distance into the interior of Eyjafjallajökull. Over the past ca. 10 thousand years, the meltwater has gradually carved a sheer-sided canyon on the order of 100 feet deep out of the volcano. Its floor is covered with cobbles large enough that the river hasn’t yet flushed them into the outwash valley, and its walls are made of a material called “palagonite”, which is composed of volcanic tuff of a range of sizes, with a very rough surface texture (as abrasive as very coarse sandpaper). We had fun hopping the small streamlets and navigating deep enough into the canyon that we reached the first branch. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go further. Here’s a look at one of the walls near the canyon’s entry:

Next installment: July 3: The road to Skaftafell Park

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