Switching gears here. We flew to Iceland last night and are tootling around the countryside now. It is 10/1, by all accounts the ‘end’ of the tourist season. This will be relevant in a moment.
Today was a truncated Golden Circle tour, one that was even done by our forefather of sorts, Danish king Christian IX who visited Iceland in 1874. That is another story.
Our first stop was Geysir. The original term came from this place and is now commonly used to refer to geysers the world over. This area consists of the original Geysir which is now only intermittently active (when there is an earthquake) and one which lets loose every 6-8 ministers. It’s called Strokkur (Butter Churn) and was MUCH more crowded than I would have expected considering the time of year. Still thrilling. The whole area is something like 240C 1km below the earth’s crust, which makes this a field of fumaroles and bubbling pots.
And all of that geothermic activity is due to the mid Atlantic ridge which runs below Iceland and is getting wider at a pace of 2cm per year. More on that tomorrow. But suffice it to say the magma is close to the surface here in Iceland, and especially here at Geysir.
The second stop was Gullfoss, which drains Iceland’s interior, is a 2 stage waterfall—the upper drops 15 measly feet and the lower 70 feet, but the overall effect is massive. It’s unusual as the water falls transverse to the fall line. You can look at this from the top, but it’s most effective from the bottom, where the spray douses you in a light mist and there is this measly cord separating you from your untimely death as the Icelander’ don’t believe in coddling you. You were warned at the top. On a dash when the clouds were low, instead of seeing the distant glacier, we got moody atmosphere. So cool.
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