It was Day 3 of our trek across Iceland and we had already traversed more than 700 kilometers (434 miles) around, and then into the heart of the frozen tundra. Everything that we could have possibly expected from the land of fire and ice had already been thrown at us; testing our physical and mental limits: Sleep deprivation, howling wind storms, subzero temperatures, and blizzards all the like. Even food scarcity was an issue (it was winter, after all). The exhaustion was only a hair’s width away from morphing into outright frustration, and a breaking point was nearing as we reached one of our most anticipated stops of the day: Lake Viti.
Lake Viti (“Viti” literally translating to “hell” in Icelandic) is a crater lake that was formed inside an active volcano who’s most recent eruption was as late as 1976. Despite the inherent danger of the volcano, the lake itself shimmers a welcoming, light blue color during the months it isn’t frozen over, and as such is a hot spot (no pun intended) for tourism and photography. It’s an easy drive to get there in the summer; with a public access road that leads up the steep volcano and straight to a parking lot a few hundred meters from the edge of the crater. But this wasn’t the summer, and the drive to reach the crater was anything but easy.
As we approached the base of the volcano, the four of us skeptically looked up at the snow-covered road that lay ahead. Our trusty Rav4 had shown no previous struggles with forging through moderate snow on flat land, but we hadn’t yet tested its mountain-climbing capabilities. And to make matters even more dicey, we were now in the middle of a full on blizzard. And when I say blizzard, I mean blizzard. 50 feet in any direction was about as far as they eye could see before the rest of the world disappeared into a hazy white. All in all, the conditions were not ideal, but hey, the conditions hadn’t been ideal the entire trip! We were driving up that volcano and nothing, not even a perilous, icy, invisibly steep road was going to stop us. And it didn’t…but the tourists did.
We began our ascension of the icy volcano confidently, and not more than a quarter of the way up the mountain we were stopped dead our tracks - a car had been abandoned in the middle of the road, adjacent to another car stuck in the snow to the side. There was no way around them without serious risk of treacherously deep snow. As we sat in our car, contemplating our next move, another, more off-road worthy vehicle came up along side us. A burly Icelandic man got out to begin towing the abandoned cars out of the snow, and to sternly remind us that the road was now CLOSED to all vehicle traffic. Any hopes of an easy drive to the crater were now up in flames (or snow, if you will).
Unbroken by the slew of challenges that had befallen us, we donned our heavy jackets, rain coats, and anything we could find that would offer insulation from the cold. Staying warm was going to be an absolute essential, because we were about to scale the 2.5 kilometer road up the mountain to Viti crater…on foot.
The hike itself was manageable, albeit incredibly difficult. The wind, snow, and cold were unrelenting. And each step up the icy terrain was, more often than not, followed by sliding a half step back down. The tingling sensations in my face and fingers quickly turned to numbness, and the road seemed to continue to wind endlessly upward into the snowy abyss. But none of that, not the cold nor the snow, was as defeating as reaching the summit.
A quick Google images search of Viti crater would show brilliantly vast views across the surrounding lakes and mountains - a landscape photographer’s paradise. We had none of that. Instead we were met with an unending winter wasteland. The mountains and lakes were lost in flurries of snow blanketing the sky, and the beautiful blue water of Lake Viti was a pale white of ice and dirt. We stood on an outcropping of rock on the edge of the crater, looking for something, anything to be seen. There was nothing. Just snow being thrown from the sky to the ground, and then back up again. We set out our cameras, hoping for some semblance of luck, only to have them blanketed in water droplets as wandering snow flakes came to rest on them. Taking pictures was a lost cause. The blizzards weren’t giving up, so it finally became time that we did. We packed away our gear and, wouldn’t you know it, luck finally began to shine its light on us. Literally.
The very blizzard that had been tormenting our group for more than an hour parted like the Red Sea, breaking over Viti crater to reveal the sun sinking behind the hazy Iceland horizon. Light erupted into the sky, transforming the dreary snow flakes into colorful streams wisping across the icy crater. It was surreal. As quickly as we had put away our cameras, we ferociously tore them back out and began taking photos; one after another, and on and on until the blizzard once again covered the sky. Our window of snow-free scenery lasted only minutes, but all of the cold, wind, and snow could never strip away its - if only momentary - beauty.
We sat there, on the edge of that crater, for some time after; completely mesmerized; smiles stretching from ear to ear. This was it. This was what traveling the world, braving the cold, and battling the snow was all about. Little glimpses of majesty in the midst of “hell” on Earth. This was why we came to Iceland.
The proceeding hike down the mountain was jovial as could be: laughing and joking along the way. It was still miserably cold outside, but no one cared. We had survived it, and it had been worth every second. “What was next?” We all wondered. “What more was this strange land going to throw at us?” Only time would tell…and we still had 8 more days of that.