Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land

by W. S. C. Russell

“Well, Johannes can go no further; Johannes is an old man and he has pain in here,” placing his hand over his stomach, “the skyr I ate this morning was little and it not good to do Hekla-climb on.” So saying, he dug his hole deeper and reclined in the snow while we pushed our way over the remaining snow surface to the cinder cone.

Yes, Johannes was an old man and a faithful one. His action this day was a fine bit of Icelandic courtesy and faithful service. Honestly he did not think it wise for a woman to attempt the climb and being confident that Mrs. Russell would not endure, he knew that my climb of the mountain would be defeated if I had had to turn back with her, so he trudged along manfully to be her companion when she ceased climbing and await my return. When we were near enough to the summit so that it was evident that “the lady” would win, he halted and veiled his whole earnest efforts under the excuse of his weakness. He was a faithful man, constantly anticipating our wants and always ready to exert himself for our comfort and pleasure.

When we were on the glassy lava we wished we were on the snow slope, when we were scaling and slipping on the snow we wished we were on the lava. But what of the cinder cone! That was short but it was the worst of all. We made the ascent on a narrow ridge like that of a roof. The loose material rolled away and often took us backward with it. A false step to either side of the ridge carried us down several yards and it became a hand and foot scramble to regain the lost position on the ridge. Near the very top if we had made a false step towards the right we would have been precipitated several rods into the creeping rubble of multi-colored cinders, if the false step had been to the left we would have fallen an equal distance on to the snowbank in the rim of the crater.

During the last hour of the climb we were enveloped in clouds and as we gained the summit snow was falling. A sudden change in the direction of the wind swept the clouds from the top of the mountain and we had ten minutes of clear sky which afforded time for two good photographs and a quick view of the surrounding country. Mrs. Russell unfurled the flag of the Arctic Club of America, the stars and stripes in the upper left hand corner of an ice-green field. This flag had been presented to me for this purpose by the late Rear Admiral W. S. Schley, then president of the Arctic Club. We have every reason to believe that Mrs. Russell was the first woman to gain this point and I know that it was the first time that the stars and stripes ever floated from the summit of a volcano in Iceland.

The reading of the thermometer at the summit was zero, Centigrade; the reading of the aneroid barometer, carefully compared with the standard at the station in Reykjavik before starting and corrected by the same instrument for the same hour when we returned, gave the elevation of Hekla as 5,050 feet. This is not a high mountain but it has features peculiar to itself that render its ascent one of toil. Any person with endurance and thoughtful care can make the ascent and no one who visits Iceland, if at all interested in the topography of the country or in volcanic formations, can afford to miss it.

I climbed down to the brink of the crater upon the snow shelf to view the interior and to photograph the opposite wall. No ascent had been made for four years and at that time the local guide stated that the crater was full of snow and ice. This is the ash crater of 1845. The opening is about 450 by 360 feet. When I looked into its depths on July 20, 1909, there was no snow in the bottom and vapor was ascending. This vapor was doubtless snow evaporation. Yet, there has been some heat radiation from within to clear out this great cavity of ice and snow in four years. Fifteen minutes walk along the ridge brings the traveller to the red crater, which is about the same size as the other or northern crater but unlike it the material is red with considerable sublimated sulfur.

Hekla is by no means dead. Numerous earthquakes have occurred in its vicinity within the past three years and a large area of the ice mantle is reported as having slipped off in 1910. It is sixty-nine years since the great eruption of 1845, which is more than twice the average period of inactivity but it is nine years less than its longest period of rest. An eruption may be expected at any time. The old volcano, in spite of the slander which Burton heaps upon it, is worthy of scientific study and before its next eruption a series of observations should be taken similar to those made by Frank Perret on Vesuvius and other Mediterranean volcanoes.

The view from Hekla is superb. The eye is first arrested by the ridges of lava, black, red, gray, horrent and ill-boding which extend down the mountain slopes and bury themselves in the fertile soil of the distant plains. Each of the two main ridges bisects a well watered section, once fertile and now choked with sand. To the northwest, Láng Jökull raises its two score miles of ice-parapet, four hundred miles of unexplored Iceland; to the northeast is spread out the vast expanse of mighty Vatna Jökull, Mountain-Producing-Waters, an area of ice-covered tableland one hundred miles by sixty; between these two glaciers and directly north of us stands Hofs Jökull, Hof signifying heathen-temple, it is nearly circular and appears like the frosted dome of a mammoth cake. Between the last two Jökulls, stretching away into the northeast, is the Sprengisandur, Bursting-Sands, a mighty desert entirely void of vegetation, a dreary, desolate tract, wind-driven and life-destroying. Nearer, in the emerald plain flow the glacier-born rivers the Thjórsá and the Hvitá and a cloud of saffron sand floats in the air above the desert which we crossed yesterday. We cannot see the travellers but surely there is a train of horses there and the wind is lifting the fine sand into the sun. Turn now to the southward, look down along the tumbled chimneys and the red hornitos of Hekla and the first object to arrest the eye is the beautiful Tindfjallajökull, Peaked-Ice-Mountain, with its two ice-horns resembling the Matterhorn, protruding from an oval mound of lava and casting their blue shadows on the trackless snow. Behind this mountain is the Saga country of the South, the home of the noble Njal and the peerless Gunnar. There was the scene of Iceland’s great Epic, Burnt Njal. Those ribbons of limpid silver that branch from the base of Goðalands Jökull, Land-of-the-Gods, like reins from the hand of a chariot driver, those are the many branches of the Markarfljót, Boundary-Marking-River, pouring down its floods of glacial waters and volcanic sands to choke the passage in an effort to join Heimaey to the mainland. Across the moors, the sheep ranges and the marshes beyond, the North Atlantic, encircling the black masses of the Westman Islands, wreathes those weathered pillars with garlands of snow-white foam.

The descending clouds and the falling snow suddenly shut off the view, but the camera of the eye has caught it all in a circling panorama and the prints are stored in memory’s folder to be opened at leisure. The infinite waste of the lava billows, grandeur rising from desolation, the flash of the restless rivers, the quiet of the happy plain,—these are but the halftones in Iceland’s matchless print.

The descent of the mountain was quickly made and without incident. The slide down the semi-glacial cone was a matter of pure enjoyment. We passed out of the snowstorm and the cloud at the base of the cinder pile into perfect sunshine with all the loveliness of the western section to gladden the eye. Johannes rested by his nap in the snow cradle joined us in the sport of rolling lava blocks down the declivity. To roll stones down a mountain slope, pitting one against another with equal chances for winning the race, is a delightful pastime, but when the racecourse is a bed of ice and the goal a distant lava ridge against which the contestants dash themselves into powder one is apt to linger till the last desirable stone has been turned. Many a slip and tumble added zest to the descent, for each slide was so much gained and no ground could be lost and we laughed at the brevity of the steps in the upward trail. We were happy, having done one of the things which we had gone to Iceland to attempt.