Iceland 15th Anniversary Trip (Part 3)

We drove an hour and 45 minutes down the coast. We passed beautiful moss covered lava fields and gorgeous snow capped mountains. I didn't get any pictures since we were in a hurry, but it was so beautiful.

Today we hiked 5 hours up the largest glacier in Europe, Skaftafell in Vatnajokull National Park. I was a little nervous but also really excited. This was our warmest day in Iceland. Most of the days were 30 and windy, but this day got up to 45 degrees. Michael and I had on multiple layers and ended up working so hard to get up the glacier that we had to shed most of the layers. My backpack was quite heavy by the end of the trip. 

Going up, up, up!

This glacier is on top of volcanic rock, so the black in the picture is actually volcanic rock. Michael did a viking push up to drink the glacier water. We filled my water bottle with the water and it was the freshest water. I can't even describe how refreshed you felt after drinking this water. 

It was so interesting climbing this glacier. The glacier is different every day. We were instructed to follow in a straight line behind the guide for safety. We had to re-route multiple times for large crevices in the glacier that weren't safe to walk on. It was really something amazing to experience. This tour was marked as moderate. Both Michael and I thought it was pretty tough and we both thought that Patrick may have even struggled at 13 years old. 

Made it to the wall. Once you get up to this point you would have to climb with ropes. We later learned that there is a tour that allows you to climb with ropes and then zipline down. Maybe one day...

After the hike, we headed a few minutes down the road to our hotel, FossHotel Glacier Lagoon Hotel. This hotel was GORGEOUS! We had originally planned to stay a second night in Vik (about an hour and a half away) to prevent staying in a different hotel every night but changed plans last minute. We were so glad we changed plans. We had the most beautiful room with the most beautiful view. 

View from the room

We spent a couple hours in the hot tubs at the hotel staring out at the ocean and black sand beach. It was exactly what we needed after a long day of hiking. 

We had dinner at the hotel and drinks in the bar first. 

I loved how they served icelandic butter on lava rocks. Dinner was really good. We enjoyed the slow and relaxed afternoon and dinner at the hotel after a busy morning.