Best Day of the Trip

For sightseeing nothing beat our third day. So much to see, the photographs do not really do justice to what it looks like. Because Eryn had no classes, we had the whole day for tripping. The plan was to go to a peninsula north of Reykjavik called Snaefellsness. Its key geological feature is the extinct volcano, Snaefellsjokull. The road runs around a fjord where the morning light was extraordinarily weird at times, giving this rosy purple glow to some things like this stream feeding into the head of the fjord. The name of the place is Hvalfjordur or Whale Fjord (In the crazy world of Icelandic pronunciation, the Hv is "K"). The story is that an evil whale with a red head was lured by a magician priest (In Icelandic tradition, magic or mystical power is a major attribute of priests whether of the pre- or post-Christian variety) to his doom by swimming up the stream to his ultimate exhaustion. Saw no whale bones as per tradition, but the sunlight was awesome on the stream.
Iceland is known for its horses, a breed that has remained largely the same for over a thousand years. They heredity is so highly protected that no show for the International Icelandic Horse Association is ever held in Iceland. No horses are allowed in and if an Icelandic horse leaves for the show or other reasons, it is a one way journey. This shot of horses near one of the towns with the chapel in the background is my favorite photo of the week:
The terrain and the weather combine to make some more pretty cool views. All these mountain have this basaltic scree at the base. I imagine if one wanted to scale this mountain, not only some pretty good rock climbing skills would be necessary but you'd have to be in superb shape. Just getting to the base of the cliff would wear you down trudging from the plain through the gravel.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to see Snaefellsjokull (SNI fedls yo KUDl is the pronunciation - good luck at that "dls" sound!) the volcano Jules Verne used as the entry point for the Journey to the Center of the Earth. One of my favorite child movie memories if the moment in the movie when the sun lights the entrance inside the cone to the sound of the Bernard Hermann's haunting soundtrack. Standing at the base with the twin peaks rising above was pretty awesome. The ground is all lava flow, called hraun, which is covered with this incredibly thick moss. Eryn aptly described it like walking on bushels of cotton. "Hraun" is the name of our favorite Icelandic candy - sort of chocolate Rice Krispie treats that look a bit like chunks of basaltic lava flow. Getting to the way you cannot get the whole scene into your camera frame, one can turn around from the mountain and see the ocean just across the highway. One of the best spots is this basaltic formation overlooking a cliff. The bizarre shape rises from the land about 40 feet and the cliff on the other side adds another 25. Two interesting traditions about the location: The formation itself is called an "elf church." Elves are an important part of Icelandic lore, but they are not really like elves in our tradition. They look and act like human beings, but are not really happy with being seen, so they remain hidden to most people, hence their name in Icelandic is "Hidden People" (Huldefolk). Once Christianity came to the island, the Alfar converted as well. The other story is sort of "The Devil Went Down to Iceland" wherein Satan challenges a 19th century poet to a poetry slam that lasted the entire night. Until Midnight, the Devil starts a couplet and the hero has to finish the rhyme with another couplet. The poet ties the first round, but the second round after Midnight has Satan completing the poet's beginning. All was tied (with the tie going to the Devil evidently) until just about daybreak when the poet flourishes his knife at Satan's throat (I suppose to break his concentration) while ending his couplet with the word "oblige." Satan, being unable to respond, loses the contest and is ordered by the poet to plunge into the sea never to bedevil, literally, the poet again. With the waves crashing below, Snaefellsjokull rising behind, the elf church to the right, the image of the hellish contest in the moonlight is an easy vision of eerie to picture.

A little further on around the peninsula is a location more rich in tradition than historical certainty. Supposedly, the first people to the island were Irish monks who came for meditation in the solitude (which they would have found in abundance other than the seals and the puffins). They established a settlement on the western end of the island at a place that bears the mark of the folklore, Irskabrunner (Irish Well), pretty much a hole in the ground down which one could walk down steps to get, presumably fresh water, about 200 yards from the ocean. We saw no water, but it was pretty cool especially with the inexplicable whale skull adding structural integrity to the earthen walls staving off, we hoped, sudden collapse. Just as we were about to leave, I remembered something I needed - a stone from Iceland. There was a pile of hraun just at the exit to the highway so I stooped the car, hopped out and selected the cheapest souvenir a tourist could carry home.

I did not know really what we would see on this trip so all of these remarkable sights were serendipitous joys. The only thing I truly desired to see while there was the Aurora Borealis. Every time I have journeyed north of the 45th parallel, I have hoped after hope to see it, but to no avail. On the way back that evening, sharp eyed Eryn spotted some light so we stopped the car to check it out. There it was, a faint glimmer of green in a moonlit sky. I rushed to get my camera and then realized a photographer's horror: NO TRIPOD! In a moment of desperation / inspiration, I started scanning the side of the country road for something to set my camera on to steady it in the darkness. Farm country provided just what we needed, a fence, so I pulled off by the gate to a pasture and stepped out into a beautiful but frigid night. I was dressed warm enough in my multi-layers despite the 40 mph winds. What I didn't have were gloves. Stephanie lent me one for my left hand, but I kept my right hand free to operate the camera controls. It did not take long to recognize that winds so fast with temperatures, at most, the high teens could turn quickly to a medical emergency if I were not careful, so I had to work fast enough to save my fingers from frostbite but slowly enough to get multiple exposures. Next obstacle: the camera flat on the fence post was at too low an angle to photograph the sky. Joints and fingers on my right hand freezing made it hard to concentrate on what I could use to find prop the lens up. There was nothing but grass around me. My hraun! Out of my pocket came my basaltic souvenir from the Irskabrunner, just large enough to point the lens at the sky without my touching the camera.

After setting the time exposure, I leaned down to aim the camera for just the right shot and heard a faint humming - the post was wooden, but the wires were electrified! Another challenge to face. I placed the strap around my neck and loaded my back muscles to straighten up like a spring if the camera fell and hit the shutter button.

Now, a camera when working on a long exposure should remain motionless or the film image will blur. But 40 mile and hour winds will not allow a camera steadied on a fence post and balanced on a lava rock to remain motionless. Only a really heavy tripod would probably have worked in those conditions. I had to keep my hand on the camera during the exposure, a sure way of introducing micro movements of the hand muscles into the problem of getting a proper exposure. The only solution was waaay more shots than I would typically do and hope at least one of them was not too jiggly. With stinging fingers on my right hand, I eventually got back in the warm car with hope of success in my heart. The final outcome, while not perfect, is about as good as I good expect for the circumstances:















And I still have my fingers.