Charlie vs. Iceland 2017: On the up and up

I have never really hiked that much before, but if there is any place to start it is definitely Iceland. I need to tell you about some of the places we have hiked to so far.

Here's a throwback picture from our first hike.

1. By the geothermal hot springs. I can't remember if I told you about this one, but we were supposed to be checking out the exhibit by the hot springs and instead we hiked up the mountain right next to it. At the time I thought it was really hard. Now, looking back, I am realizing that I was a wimp.

2. Don't know if you can call this one a hike, but we walked up a really long set of stairs at a volcano that went up and around the crater. Megan and I didn't know it at the time, but we were looking out over our host parents' college campus where they met.

Views from the troll's seat!

3. From our host house and from our university center, you can see this funny little indent in the side of the mountain that people around here refer to as the "troll's seat", because it really does look like one. It goes up about 1/3 of the way up the mountain, and from far away, it looks like there is no way you can climb it because of how steep it is. Turns out you can, and we did. Hofi took Megan and I to do this hike with some people she works with. They do the hike every year to commemorate a fellow employee who died climbing the valley inside the troll's seat (not where we were hiking, don't worry, he was a rock climber). This thing was pretty much straight up. Major strain on the butt and calf muscles. It also took so much longer than you think it does, which is a common theme of Iceland, I'm realizing -- that everything is so much farther away than it appears. It took us 45 minutes to get to the top.

Me and Meg in the troll's seat. See all the Frozen rocks?

I don't know what I expected the inside of the valley to look like when we got up there, but it definitely was a surprise. It looked like those rock trolls from Frozen were lying all over the place. Like one giant mossy rock playground. And it was huge! Plus the view was incredible, you could see out over the town, the fjord, and the ocean. I thought it was perfect: a good workout (hiking really gets your heart rate up) and a great view. Then it was just 30 minutes back down! It really made you practice your balance and muscle control. I loved it, I want to do it again.

Here are the little waterfalls I was talking about!

4. This one wasn't really that much of a hike either, just a 20 minute walk up, but we saw the biggest waterfall in the Westfjords called Dynjandi. It was so powerful. My favorite part about it wasn't even the biggest waterfall at the top, it was all of the smaller waterfalls going down towards the ocean that I really loved. It looked like a water park.

Meg about a third of the way up the mountain.

5. This one is the monster hike. But wow was it worth it. Best view I have seen in my entire life.

To keep the description short, basically Hofi and Christian took us to a relative's farm in a valley of a fjord (between 2 mountains) and climbed the mountain on the left, called Thorfinur. You can Google it to see pictures of it, or just see the ones I posted below of our trek up it. And it really was a trek. It took us 3.5 hours to get to the top. It was no casual stroll either, this thing was straight. up. for a good portion of it. Our only instructions were to "follow the sheep." That's not a joke, Megan and I pulled ahead because our host parents were being chatty (in Icelandic) with their friends, and we didn't want to be awkward. At one point, we didn't know which cliff to climb up next, and Christian just said "FOLLOW THE SHEEP!" from the cliff below us. Best life advice ever.

My study abroad program said we weren't allowed to go rock climbing, but I think that definitely counted as rock climbing at times. I just never looked down.

Here's our monster hike! Told you it was straight up.

Also, because it was so steep, you couldn't climb single-file because you would get rocks kicked on you, or you just wouldn't have a solid place to step if the person in front of you already used it (I promise I'm not exaggerating any of this description, this is all serious). So after we started the really really hard stuff about 2/3 of the way in, it was dead silent. All I could hear was my own breathing and the sound of the rocks slipping out under my feet for about 1.5 hours. I was really in my head, trying to talk myself into continuing to the top. It's much harder when you aren't with other people. I could see Megan every once and a while waayy over to my left, but I wasn't really paying much attention.

Once you got to the top, you would think it would be flat up there, right? At least that's what I thought, probably because I was looking for anything to call a finish line. Instead, it was covered in rocks so you always had to watch your step and double check your footing. There was also snow up there, which I didn't really touch because you couldn't see what was under there or, more importantly, if there was anything under there at all.

Mom don't kill me, I made it all the way up so I had to see the edge.

But the VIEW though. Just wait until you see it, I put a lot of pictures down below.

I had zero desire to go back down. Partly because I was tired and partly because I would never get sick of it. You could look down and see the tops of the birds flying below you.

Going down took another hour and a half. I learned the best way to go down a steep mountain is sideways, and really worked my outer thighs. It's also fun to surf the rocks (and takes a lot less time). I fell on my butt a lot, but turns out that also saves energy. I was really feeling one with that mountain by the end of it.

Hoping to go on more hikes like these throughout the rest of this trip. I really can't get enough of this part of Iceland.