Iceland Highlights: Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Toor and I woke early on the last full day of our trip to Iceland, eager to get as far east as possible before we had to head back towards the airport for our flight home. After a morning hike in Skaftafell National Park, where we perched atop a waterfall gazing out at a sheer drop and pool below, we got back on the Ring Road [1] and made our way towards the Glacier Lagoon.

Toor relaxing atop one of the fosses.

The glacial icecap along the southeast coast of Iceland, Vatnajökull, is the second-largest in Europe. The most popular access point is Jökulsárlón, also known at the Glacier Lagoon. Jökulsárlón is an enormous bay at the base of Breiðamerkurjökull, one of the many constituent glaciers of Vatnajökull, from which broken chunks of ice float unceremoniously out to sea. 

The bridge over the base of Jökulsárlón.

Map of  the relative location of Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón.

We turned off the road early to visit the (much less crowded and touristic) enclosed lagoon at Fjallsjökull first, driving up a black gravel and sand path to small parking lot. At the edge of the lot stood a long, temporary structure subdivided into basic rooms with white tarps: an area with a picnic table to sit and eat; an employee/mystery area. A brightly-painted truck filled with arctic expedition jackets and life vests was parked in front of the structure. I approached a blonde woman with a clipboard and very good posture about tickets for a boat tour of the lagoon. Yes, she replied, we have two more spots for the tour leaving in just a few minutes.

View from the shores of Fjallsárlón.

SOLD.

This is an adventure smile!

Our guide called the blue ice along the edge of the glacier "wounds," a poetically apt description. Exposed blue ice shows where the glacier recently broke off into the lagoon; the blue color develops deep within the glacier, where the weight and movement of the glacier compresses the ice until only blue spectrum light is refracted. 

A fresh, blue "wound" at the base of Fjallsjökull.

Once exposed to the sun and air, the ice deteriorates to a "normal" density that refracts all colors of light and it appears clear--or, as in the case of this floating nugget, accented by multicolored sequins. 

Glacial ice nuggets make pretty colors (and compliment scotch).

The dusty trails of black, the final color of the glacier, are pulverized sediment from the volcanic mountain beneath the glacier, scraped and ground ruthlessly by the slow, inexorable advance of the ice.

Black trails of crushed sediment accent "new" and "old" glacial ice.

Our guide pointed out the ragged, horizontal ridges on a nearby mountain and explained that the ice used to melt and recede in the summer, sliding down into the glacial pool, and then freeze again in the winter, pushing back up the mountain as the ice expanded. Now, the mountain is mostly bare; no new ridges are formed to mark the glacier's advance and retreat. The ice only descends. At its current rate of decomposition, fewer than a hundred years separate glacier from lake. 

Ridges and wounds.

On a lighter note, our guide casually noted the danger of taking our little rubber-ringed Zodiac boat too close to the edge of the glacier; on bright days during the summer, very large chunks of the glacier can detach and fall into the lagoon, adversely affecting boats underneath or nearby. 

You've got to love the Icelandic tendency towards understatement. He qualified that it's "totally awesome" to catch a wave off a falling chunk of glacier.

Chunks of ice floating by serenely.

It was supernaturally quiet on Fjallsárlón. The air was brisk and the sun powerful, sparkling along the ridges of snow and curled edges of giant, irregular ice cubes. We zipped across the water like real adventurers plowing through the arctic, leaving man and civilization behind for the brutal beauty of nature's extremities.

Hope to see you out there.