Iceland: Laugavegur Trail

I went to a conference in Iceland in 2014 to give a paper on disaster recovery. My walk in Alaska had gone well, so I thought I’d repeat the experience in Iceland. The Laugavegur Trail is one of the big walks and is the most famous trek in Iceland. It runs north to south over 80km from Landmannalaugar via Pórsmork to Skógar on the coast, crossing otherworldly landscapes formed by recent volcanoes.

The Trail

The trail is normally open from late June to mid-August. I started on 15 June, the first day the bus ran to Landmannalaugar and managed the trek from Landmannalaugar to Skogar in 4 days, including the bus trips at either end.

I hadn’t booked the huts as I didn’t know whether I’d make it. So I took camping gear. The scenery is sensational, and unlike anywhere I’d been before. I was alone much of the time, having started early in the year, and at this time of the year, there was still a lot of snow. There were three river crossings in flood, and I needed to strip and take care.

The scenery

You pass through vivid rhyolite mountains, climb snow slopes, cross ash deserts, deep rift canyons and glacial streams. There are wild flowers, sweet birch and the mournful cries of redshank and ptarmigan.

Published  26 Jun 2017, 40 pages, ISBN 9780995768093