Our current adventure was born from a comment at a dinner party two months ago when an old ski instructor friend Chris Fellows mentioned; "We're going to Iceland this Spring to ski remote fjords near the Arctic Circle from a small fishing boat." "What?" I said, "How cool, do you have any space left on the boat?"
So here we find ourselves in Iceland with tales of our climb of the country's highest peak, Hvannadalshnúkur. It is located on the southeastern part of the island, a difficult name to pronounce but thanks to the tips and experience of our seasoned guide, Einar Sigurosson, not unusually difficult to climb. And since we climbed this volcanic peak on skis (with climbing skins affixed to the bases for the ascent) it made the decent fun and fast! It was a long day (10 1/2 hours total up and down covering over 13 miles) but a special treat to spend it with Einar whose great grandfather in 1891 was the very first person to summit the 6,920 foot peak. Einar also holds the record for the most successful summits of the mountain, now at 324! When I baited the question of which of all of these times over the years was his favorite, of course he obligingly said this summit with our group! We invited our very good friend Helga Hengge from Munich to join us on this adventure, and she is a super strong climber, not to mention witty and fun so Einar's response may not have been too far from the truth.
We are now in the far northwestern corner of Iceland in a small village called Isafjordur where we are about to board a renovated fishing boat called the Örkin for our six day ski touring adventure in the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve.
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