Reunited with The Brainy Bunch on the Lava Fields

It was a pretty steep decent initially and the pain I had in my hip was subsiding at this point. I had only a few moments of this easier walk until I reached a stream of boiling water which stunk of sulphur, my view from the side of this stream was a sudden reminder that I was back to steep ascents and descents for the next 13km to reach base camp.

I started the ascent and whipped out my handy trekking poles, digging them into the ice helped me to get some grip and start ascending back up towards the clouds, with each step I was in a bit more pain with my hip and as I went over the verge my hip gave out and I slipped, and fell. All the way down to the bottom. My Icelandic guide reached the bottom a few minutes after, she took the sensible and planned route of walking to the bottom of the glacier and soon advised me that “I shouldn’t make a habit of falling down things in Iceland because there is a big hole under the ice over there…” As you can imagine I did the rest of the trek in agony with my hip, lots of tears and worry about losing my footing again. Suddenly the snow got thicker, it was just me and my guide and we were barely making out the next trek marker through the snow. We kept going though, the terrain was torturous but I knew I couldn’t give up.

I had a camp to reach and £6,000 of money for research into a cancer which could kill me and had just taken my friend from me. I was worried while I was making my way about the other group waiting around for me at camp, and the potential they’d be fed up or annoyed I’d fallen behind when I arrived back. (it was looking more like ‘if I ever made it back’ at this point) Somehow through tears and worry and lots of fear climbing, we’d made halfway through the second half of my day. The pain was excruciating but I was making it, I almost always forget the pain each step was causing when I caught back up with the others who had waited behind for me, until this picture surfaces…

A picture can truly tell a thousand words.

The snow was starting to disappear and the views were so beautiful, I took very few pictures at this point due to the high winds, I was still using the trekking poles, not now to pull myself up but to stabilise myself against the wind so high up. I was suffering with a dizzy feeling looking over the edge at heights to see the view that I had never experienced before, but I persevered on and ‘just didn’t look over the edge anymore’.

Rainbow mountain was about 2km ahead on my left, I set my eyes on that and raced ahead. Beyond the beautiful multi coloured sands of ‘Rainbow Mountain’ was the Lava Fields of Landmannalaugar in which our final camp site was nestled. It was the longest 1km of my life on a thin pathway with steep ascents to each side. When this was over, there was no time for me to relax, as my fear of heights was met with a ‘set of stairs’ which was in fact just rocks on the side of the mountain, formed in a way we could walk down them safely to the lava fields below. There was a long route through the lava fields to go to base camp for my evening where I knew we were camping next to a natural hot spring. All I had to do was make it back to that hot spring, finally the mountains broke and I could see camp.

Walking through the lava fields was a blur as I heard about the old Icelandic wives tales that inspired the trolls in Disneys ‘Frozen’ and I could start to see the ‘faces’in the lava fields as we walked through. I was equally in awe and slightly worried the tales of rocks which came to life as trolls would inspire the craziest dreams that evening. Finally, I was back and could see the tents at camp, as I grew closer, anxious that my camp mates would be frustrated by the long waits in the cold for me earlier in the day, I was greeted by an almighty cheer. Everyone was congratulating me and so glad I made it back, a few people were checking my welfare before they all sat me down to eat. I stuffed it all down as it was a much-needed meal after a very long day. I knew soon we could all strip off to swimwear and dash through the cold to the hot springs.

We all nattered in the hot springs until early morning, as with no sunset at this time of year in Iceland we soon forgot our indicators of time! I slept like a bug in a rug that evening though as Misch had given me some hand warmer to pop in my sleeping bag.