Road to Skaftafell

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  Skaftafell, Skaftafell National Park, Iceland
Saturday, February 12, 2011

Today I drove to Skaftafell. To get there I had to traverse the huge outflow plain in front of a large glacier. The glacier covered the whole of the northern horizon as as I drove along. This glacier has the added attraction of having an active volcanoe under it. From time to time this volcanoe erupts and generates massive glacial floods. A glacial flood is called a jökulhlaup. I have copied this entry from wikipedia to explain what happens.
"It is not by chance that the term jökulhlaup comes from Icelandic, as the south of Iceland has very often been the victim of such catastrophes. This was the case in 1996, when the volcano under the Grímsvötn lakes belonging to the Vatnajökull glacier erupted, and the river Skeiðará flooded the land in front of Skaftafell National Park. The jökulhlaup reached a flow rate of 50,000 cubic meters per second, and destroyed parts of the Hringvegur (Ring Road or Iceland Road #1). The flood carried ice floes that weighed up to 5000 tons with icebergs between 100-200 tons striking the Gigjukvisl Bridge of the Ring Road. The tsunami released was up to 4 metres high and 600 metres (660 yd) wide. The flood carried with it 185 million tons of silt. The jökulhlaup flow made it for several days the 2nd largest river (in terms of water flow) after the Amazon.After the flooding, some icebergs 10 metres high could be seen on the banks of the river where the glacier run had left them behind. The outbursts have occurred in 1954, 1960, 1965, 1972, 1976, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1991 and 1996. In 1996, the eruption melted 3 cubic kilometres (0.72 cu mi) of ice and yielded an outburst of 6,000 cubic metres per second at peak flow."

I mentioned elf rocks in one of the photos because 62% of Icelanders believe in Huldufólk or "hidden folk" ie elves, dwarfs, and trolls. Trolls are big and live in mountains. There were many possible troll mountains on the way to Thingvellir. Elves and dwarfs live in rocks, especially if the rocks are oddly shaped.

I had booked a room at the Hotel Skaftafell. I had rung them but got no answer so I had then booked via an automated system on the internet. When I got to the turn off for Skaftafell I drove down a minor road to an administrative building which was completely deserted. It closed at 3pm and it was 3:30pm. I looked around but there was no hotel, only 2 smaller glaciers in the background. I began to wonder if there was a hotel. Maybe they closed for the winter and left the internet running by mistake. I saw a tourist map on a billboard. It showed my hotel a little further down the ring road. I drove a few kilometers and saw it. I drove into a completely empty car park. I walked through the automatic front doors into a completely empty foyer. There were no guests. There were no staff at the desk. I called out a few times and then finally a person appeared. I almost hugged her with relief. She said I was the only guest. I had a nice dinner of Artic Char that night. I was the only person in the dining room. Outside the weather had turned nasty and was blowing gale force winds with rain mixed with tiny balls of ice. I hoped the weather was not going to keep me a prisoner here.
The next morning I woke and looked out to find everything covered with a new coat of snow. There was no wind. It was absolutley still.
My guidebook had said Icelandic weather was variable. It should have said it was extreme with massive changes in conditions over short periods of time.
 

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