Scandal on Ben Nevis Our gallivanting journals

The weather wasn’t much to write home about in the morning but at least it was not raining as it rained throughout the night. We packed our wet stuff and set out on the first day of the Laugavegur.

Iest starting off

Looking back towards Landmannalaugar

Colourful hills of Landmannalaugar

Ranger Ladies

It started nicely up the mountains, with a lot of steaming geothermal fields along the way. As we picked up altitude the snowfields were becoming larger and visibility lower. After ascending some 500 meters in altitude and crossing the pass between Söðull and Hrafntinnusker mountains in dense fog, we finally reached the Hrafntinnusker hut, where we planned to camp for the night. But it was still quite early in the day (about 2pm), and the conditions were not great – fully under snow and very little visibility – so we decided to push through and do the hike planned for tomorrow already today, to get to more hospitable places.

Dense Fog

Iest coming down from the fog

From the hut we still had to cross a large plateau covered in snow before we started to descend and lose altitude quite quickly. Soon we got under the clouds again, and things started looking up, although it was still a fairly long way to the next hut. The next hut/camp at Álftavatn had a great location by the lake, and by the time we got there we even got to see some sun in the cracks between the clouds. We were quite knackered after a long double day, so we dined quickly and went straight to bed.

Descending towards the lake at Álftavatn

Road to Álftavatn

Looking back up towards the Hrafntinnusker mountains