Iceland Part 3

Our next day started with a visit to this troll rock thing called Hvitserku. The road was very bumpy to get there and Cameron and I were in the back of the van--we felt like our brains got scrambled.

This is the Glanni Waterfall.

This is Kirkjufell and its waterfall. 

We arrived at Arnarstapi that night and began our exploration of what we called the "Snuffleufflegus Peninsula" (which is really the Snaefellsnes Peninsula). We did this cool walk/hike from Arnarstapi to Hellnar and it was so so beautiful.

We all felt like it looked like where the trolls live in Frozen.

Just stunning! I did a beautiful run here the next morning by myself and it was breathtaking.

We started the next day by exploring the Snaefellsjokul National Park. Here we are at the crater with one of our favorite pictures from the trip. :)

The pretty black sand beach in the national park.

We started getting more adventurous with our picture poses at this point in the trip. This is from when we did a cool walk/hike that took us to the Malarrif Lighthouse.

Just the coolest landscape. This whole area was one of my favorites. Walking along the cliffs was so beautiful.

We stopped by the Raudfeldsgja Gorge.

You could climb up inside. It was very cold and snowy inside. Very cool!

We ended the day back in Reykjavik and bid farewell to our big van.

We booked a late night ATV tour for our last night! I think it started around 9 PM and we didn't get home til midnight or so.

About the darkest it ever got.

At the top of some mountain overlook. :)

Love this crazy bunch!

Extremely tired the next morning on the way to the airport.

Made it back to SLC! We had the most incredible trip and feel so grateful we got to explore such a beautiful part of the world with these wonderful friends.

Iceland Part 2

We started this day off with the Mulaglufur Canyon hike and it was incredible! I think it was my favorite hike of the trip. It was definitely a climb, but the views were incredible.

You could see really pretty views of the glaciers.

We visited Glacier Lake afterward and had a nice lunch.

We headed to Diamond Beach and honesty were a bit disappointed haha? It had gotten rave reviews from all the books, but we were a little underwhelmed? We're thinking there are usually a lot more ice chunks on the beach than we had.  

Still very pretty! And we saw a couple of seals swimming.

A little lounging before our glacier boat ride.

Our glacier boat ride ended up being a major highlight of the trip for all of us. It was so cool and so different from anything we've ever done.

It was so fun to zip around all the little icebergs everywhere looking for seals. It was very bouncy; I'm shocked our guide had never had anyone fall out.

We went to the glacier wall and waited for a few minutes, hoping we'd get lucky and get to see a piece fall off. Sure enough, we heard a giant crash and rushed over to where a chunk had just fallen off.

A totally spectacular experience.

We loved our guide! He was such a fun guy.

These pretty purple flowers were blooming all over.

We had a mega driving day the next day as we headed up the east side of the island. We saw some reindeer on the drive!

We stopped in the cute town of Seydisfjordur to explore and have lunch. We all got matching sheep decorations and penguin ornaments.

Lots of gas station stops on the trip for bathrooms and drinks (usually Collab energy drinks). I spiced up this stop for Kasee by surprising her here as she came in the door.

We did a quick hike to see the Stuolagil Canyon. It was gorgeous!

The basalt features are so cool and other worldly.

Next we headed to Dettifoss Waterfall, but were surprised when we got there to find that the trails were extremely snowy and not the quick walk we anticipated. We made the comical trek through very deep snow and lots of puddles and got very wet. But we made it to see both falls! I think this one is Selfoss.

We made it to Dettifoss! Both of us with some wet feet. :) We ended the night stopping at the Myvatn Nature Baths, which were very cool. (But maybe our least favorite of the three baths we visited during the trip?) We didn't end up with any pictures from that one!

We woke up the next morning and did a quick bike ride with the Craguns around some of Lake Myvatn. It was a cool area, but it had a lot of bugs so we left Myvatn pretty quickly.

Next we went to Godafoss. Beautiful!

Had to get a picture with our favorite drinks--Collab. We miss these! A yummy collagen, caffeine, sparkling water drink.

Next we stopped by the town of Akureyri. It was a cute town to walk around and grab lunch.

And then we stopped by the very cool Forest Lagoon. Delicious drinks at this one! Lindsey and I became ice bath pros here.

We headed to Siglufjordur for some exploring and dinner.

It's such a cute fishing town. There was probably less to see than we thought? But it was a cute place to walk around and we loved to see all the local kids out playing.

Our hotel for the night was super cool--Hoffstadir Guest House. Cameron and I went on an evening walk. This was at 10 PM. The constant daylight was so crazy.

We walked up to this cute little church to explore. It was always fun to see little churches in very remote areas like this one.