The Gift of Snow

April 2, 2018

Astrid the Red and Bjorn the Light Catcher had two sons, the elder one was named Olaf the White for his light complexion, and the younger was Snorri the Fair-Haired because of his long locks. Olaf grew up to be a strong man and resembled his father. Snorri, big for his twelve years, resembled his mother’s side of the family. At the time of this saga, Olaf was apprenticed to a university to learn a living, therefore he did not accompany the family on the journey to Iceland, and is out of this saga.

The first night after arriving in Iceland, while the family slept, the skies worked hard above and in the morning gifted them with a light dusting of snow that turned the landscape white and shimmering.

“I’m kinda glad it’s snowing, it covers up all the ‘spring-ugly,\’’’ Astrid said as she looked out the window of their cabin. Spring ugly is when all the snow melts in early spring, revealing dormant, brown, depressing plants that have not yet grown green and lively.

“It’s better than rain,” Bjorn said.

“Absolutely.” They were going to be outside the whole day.

After trying to navigate Thingvellir National Park themselves, indecision and uncertainty drove them back to the information center for more direct directions. They were presented with an excellent presentation of the park, the whys and hows of its geology and history by a tall, light-haired young park ranger with excellent English. Visitors didn’t have to pay to get in, but had to pay to park, so they picked up a pass while they were there.

Part of the mid-Atlantic Ridge and the junction of the American and Eurasian tectonic plates lie all within this national park.

The family first stopped at a viewing platform overlooking a deep chasm in the earth, located on the western end of a volcanic rift valley. It was the place where the original Icelandic inhabitants held their Althingi, or Viking legislature of sorts, making and reciting laws, settling disputes and handing down sentences to offenders of the law.

At the Althingi, the Vikings in the Sagas stayed in tent-like booths for days, participating in the gathering, making marriage matches, and like typical Vikings, they often settled scores there using violence, cunning and/or mediation. The Lawspeaker, a Viking trained in law, would stand on top of the ledge and recite the laws of Iceland.

After admiring the view from the top, the family drove down to the bottom and took an icy hike to the waterfall down the cliff. They didn’t stay for days like the Vikings of old, but moved on to see other, larger waterfalls.

Their directions to Gullfoss, one of Iceland\’s most famous waterfalls, were contrary to what everybody else was doing, but they followed Miss GPS’s instructions anyway, only to be turned away from the small parking lot by a man shaking his head in prohibition while they parked.

Astrid rolled down her window at the frowning man.

“You can’t park here,” the bubble-vested man said, in a tone that implied that they should know better.

“Why?” the indignant Bjorn asked.

“For buses only.”

So they drove out, discussing the motives of the man who policed the parking lot (which was closer to the falls) without any apparent authority except that he drove a really big truck (not a bus, mind you).

But the upper parking lot was spacious, with lots of room and it fronted a gift shop/restaurant, with a nice paved path that lead down to the falls.

Gullfoss

Because of the snow and ice, the lower paths leading down to an up-close view of the falls was closed because Gullfoss is notorious for drowning errant, renegade tourists. The falls, along with the whitened landscape around it, was a majestic sight. The water from Hvítá River leaped down ledges, then ascended a tall angular cliff of rocks. As Bjorn took pictures, a class trip congregated around him, Astrid and Snorri, trapping them against the fence while they squeezed together for a group photo.

After taking in all of Gullfoss as was possible, the family visited the gift shop to warm up. There was a woolen horse blanket for sale there, just like the one they had at home, from the same company (here). The wool sweaters, an Icelandic icon, at 200-300$ a piece were a little bit pricey for Astrid, so she would just make due with her horse blanket (she received from her in-laws, who, to her knowledge had never been to Iceland).

They ate lunch at the gift shop cafe, where Astrid and Bjorn had the Icelandic lamb soup (with cabbage, carrots, rutabaga, potatoes and lamb) and skyr (Icelandic yogurt), while Snorri ate a ham and cheese sandwich.

In the parking lot, they went to get into what they thought was their car, but on closer inspection found that it wasn’t. There were so many white Kia rental SUVs, that it was hard to tell which one was theirs. But Snorri knew.

“Our license plate is VKTO5. Viking Toe 5. That’s how I remember it,” he said, as we scanned the license plates for the alpha-numeric.

“Nice. I like that name. The Vikings in The Sagas often named their boats. Good idea,” Astrid said.

The ship, Stigundi is one example, the name meant \”high stepper.\” The family\’s “boat” was the Viking Toe 5.

The nomenclature would come in useful every time they parked, as they easily identified their rental car from a sea of identical ones. Bjorn had ordered an SUV-type specifically for use off-road. They learned from their trip to Hawaii about how treacherous off-paved-road driving on a volcanic island can be. But here, it also helped with snowy roads and strong winds.

As they drove to the next stop, it was starting to snow harder, but they pressed on. They parked in a small lot off the highway 37 (Bruaurfoss Waterfall Official Parking Lot), carefully crossed a cattle-grate and followed footprints in the snow that lead to barely visible white path, past a group of small but hearty horses who didn’t acknowledge the hikers and went about searching for nibbles under the snow.

They trudged by a stream for about a half mile, their feet sinking in the snow-covered mud, then made their way through high shrubs, then up a ladder-like stile over a fence and came out close to a cliff overlooking the rapidly running water. B stopped at the first waterfall as the lagging Astrid and Snorri caught up.

“This isn’t ‘it’, it’s just one of the three water falls along the way,” he said, without setting down Tripod. Snorri took some time to throw snowballs into the blue-green rushing water.

It wasn’t a difficult hike, there were no long, steep inclines and no impossible vegetation. It was muddy, but the snow, falling slow and faery like, covered the branches of the shrubs in fluffy white, giving the trek a magical aura. Snow accumulated on hats, heads, shoulders and bags, while boots collected mud and water.

One-third of the way into the hike, Bjorn stopped and pointed to a small peninsula jutting out into the stream. At the tip stood two sheep–one white, one black–standing, staring back at the bipeds as they passed. They were heavy with a winter wool coat and seemed nervous and wary of the hikers.

Bjorn, eager to get to the last and most famous waterfall, went on ahead of the leisurely Snorri and Astrid, disappearing from view after passing the second waterfall.

So when Astrid and Snorri came to a fork in the path, they were faced with a very big question.

“Where is he? Which way did he go?” Astrid asked, scanning the horizon for the familiar head. Nothing. “Did he know he was passing a fork? How are we to know which way to go?”

Snorri just shrugged.

Sometimes it’s the littlest thing, one tiny moment, that make or break us in quandaries like this, put us on the right track or get us lost forever.

Weeks before, Bjorn bought water-proof boots in preparation for the trip.

“Can I buy you cramp-ons? You know, those things you put on your shoes that give you more traction in snow and ice? Because Snorri and I were discussing it, and we think you should have a pair, seeing as you like to go so near cliffs to take pictures, and Iceland has some dangerous things, like slippery, icy, windy cliffs,” Astrid pelted him with sound reasoning.

“Hmmm. No, I’ll be okay.”

“People die by getting blown off cliffs into freezing water. They get grabbed by waves and eaten by the North Atlantic. I hear the Icelandic people are awesome and kind (to your face, but really, who doesn’t get impatient and annoyed by clueless tourists?), but Icelandic Mother Nature is crabby and vindictive. Are you sure you don’t want crampons? You don’t have to get the actual spikes on your shoes, there are ones that have metal springs that increase your traction.”

“I’ll be fine, I have good traction on my hiking boots. No need for anything else.”

“Really? I’ll have to take a look.”

And she did take a look at the bottom of his new hiking boots, noticing first that, no, the tread was not impressive traction-wise, and that second, it was full of angular squiggles and odd geometric shapes.

“Well, let’s look at the footprints … I think I can remember what his shoe treads looked like,” Astrid said, head down, squinting at the white-on-white tracks going both ways under a white-grey light from the overcast, snowy sky. “Those aren’t his … nope … definitely not. There, there it is, squiggles and angular shapes, I’m pretty sure those are his tracks.”

“How can you be sure?” Snorri asked.

“In a turn of good luck, I took a look at his tread before we came, because I didn’t think it was good enough. I still don’t think they are good enough, but we’re sure lucky I did.”

They followed his tracks though a few more forks, sorting his treads from a dozen others to arrive at a wooden bridge spanning the river just below the Bruaurfoss Waterfall, a wide waterfall, frothing white and blue-green in the deep spots. He was busy with Tripod snapping pictures, oblivious to Astrid and Snorri’s adventure. A few other tourists were there, sharing the sight.

“Didn’t you see the forks in the trail back there? We lost you, and didn’t know which way to go,” Astrid said.

“What? I didn’t … What? I didn’t realize … What?”

“I had to pick the right trail by matching your footprints,” she said.

“Impressive.”

“It was kinda fun.”

“Why are there so many people here? I didn’t see them on the trail coming in.”

“There is another way you can get here, a shorter way, but you have to park in a neighborhood. They recently made the trail we hiked in on to discourage people from parking there.”

“No one wants a dozen or a few hundred strangers parking in your neighborhood … and don’t they miss the two lower water falls if they only take this short cut?”

“The two lower ones are nicer than this one.”

“I’m glad we took the long way, it was worth it.”

On the hike back, their footprints were erased, covered in a dusting of white, but the trail was easy to follow along the river.

Through the shrub-crowded trail, they came upon the sheep again, this time the woolen creatures were in front of them. The sheep would run ahead, worried about the hikers\’ intentions, but eventually they could run no more because of a fence, and jumped into the shrubs to avoid the hikers.

The family climbed the ladder-stile over the fence, putting an end to following the sheep. They trudged back through the horse pasture, avoiding road-apples, and over another fence back to the Viking Toe 5.

At the car, they shook off the snow, dried off essentials with handy micro-fiber travel towels and considered their next move.

“The mineral pools are open until 10 … or 22:00, you guys want to go?” Bjorn asked.

Snorri shrugged his shoulders, “Not really.”

“Oh, come on, we should. We never do things like this, we should do it,” Astrid said.

“If you guys go, I will, I guess,” Snorri said. They had packed swimming suits and microfiber towels just in case.

Before going through the clean, shiny doors at the Laugarvatn Fontana Geothermal Baths, they wiped the mud off their shoes as much as possible and Astrid folded the muddy part of her pants up, but she still felt a little out of place when she walked into the spa.

Bjorn ordered three admissions. The cashier hesitated, then asked, “How old is he,” pointing to Snorri.

“Twelve.”

“Do you have ID?”

Astrid and Bjorn looked at each other. “Uh … our passports are back at the cabin … “

“It’s just that twelve is the cutoff age for the children’s rate and … he looks like he’s older than twelve,” he said, a little apologetically.

“Ooh. Well …”

They looked at Snorri and realized that the kid had grown quite a bit in the last year, and didn’t look like a kid anymore.

“I can understand, he is a big kid. We feed him well. He was born in 2005 … he’s in sixth grade. I guess it’s just our word.” Bjorn finally acquiesced.

In the end, the cashier reluctantly believed them, so they appeased the man by renting three towels even though Astrid had brought her own with her.

Before they could get into the hot mineral springs-fed pools, they had to shower stitchless so as not to contaminate the chlorine-less water. The showers were clean, with mineral shampoo and soap provided, and warm, rain-like shower heads.

When Astrid was squeaky clean and had pulled on her swimming suit, she stepped out of the locker room door into a shocking 0 degree Celsius air. She walked swiftly to the first steaming pool she saw and quickly lowered herself down into the 34 degree Celsius water. It was two to three feet deep, so she sunk down to her neck, her wet hair chilled in the air.

Ten minutes later, Bjorn and Snorri walked out. She waved to them, but it did no good. Bjorn didn’t have his glasses and couldn’t see very well. Eventually they found her and sunk into the heated pool, teeth chattering.

For the next hour they passed through the cool (32 degrees C), medium (34) and hot pools (38-40), enjoying the warmth and relaxing water after the snowy hike.

After the dip in the pools and the showering, drying and re-dressing into muddy clothes, Astrid walked out to the lobby to find Bjork and Snorri looking over a case of desserts. Bjorn got a big slice of gluten-free zucchini avocado cake, Snorri a salted caramel confection.

By the time they left and walked out into the parking lot, everything was covered with a slick coat of ice, including the Viking Toe 5.