Day 23: Mountain hike!

So class went on as usual today (sorry these posts are getting so dull and repetitive). We learned about wind power and finished class around 2:30 pm. Since we're done with Icelandic we decided to go to the Red Cross here and get some t-shirts since we all packed for cold weather, and it's been rather warm since we've been here. The Red Cross here has a little shop, kind of like a goodwill, where they sell second-hand clothes (among other things). Unfortunately I couldn't find any shorts, but a got a couple of t-shirts to wear while I'm here.

After walking back into town, I went by my house to drop off my backpack and then met up with the group at our favorite cafe. We chatted for a while and then departed to go home for dinner.

A few people from our group wanted to go see Eclipse at the theater tonight, but I was planning a mountain hike since I missed the first one when I was sick. Luckily, a couple of troopers (Will, Evan and Nina) wanted to go again so I got a group together to head out around 9 pm. Unfortunately, none of our host parents could give us a lift to the trailhead (for various reasons) so we ended up just walking to the trail which is about an hour long walk from town. We did see some Iceland horses "hestars" along the way though. They were quite friendly and walked up the fence as we passed by. (In the first picture below you can see the mountain we climbed in the distance)







We began hiking up the mountain around 10:20 pm and reached the summit around 1:00 am. The trek to the top was beautiful, there are mountain streams running down the hillside and most of the landscape was surprisingly green. The water is so pure that we just dipped our empty water bottles into the stream and drank the water. It's so clear and there is almost nothing floating in it. There isn't much wildlife in Iceland (the arctic fox is one of the few native species), but we did see several birds. Towards the top there were some snow patches, and that's always fun. We threw a few snowballs around, and I made a snow angel at one point.







At the top of the peak Will surprised us with some cookies that he had snagged from his host family's house, so we feasted on those, signed the guestbook, and watched the sun dip below the skyline and reappear about a minute later. The sun never really sets in the summer.







When we were about to head down, we decided that we should climb up the neighboring peak which wasn't too far away. So...we walked across the ridge connecting the two peaks and climbed a little bit higher to reach the top of the other mountain. Standing on top of this peak we had an unobstructed 360 degree view of all of Akureyri and the surrounding mountains, it was breathtaking. We signed the guestbook and then just sat there and absorbed our surroundings. Everything was so beautiful and we didn't want to head back down. (Below are pictures of me signing the "gestabok" and adding my rock to the pile at the summit. It was 1:22am on July 1st when we reached the peak, so I wrote a birthday note for my dad.)







Seeing as how it was almost 2 am, we headed back to the other peak and began our descent. Getting past the rocky part of the mountain down to the grassy/muddy trail was rather easy. We just ran down the mountain through the snow patches, and at the steep parts just slid on our butts. The hike down was long but enjoyable, and when we reached the bottom our pants were quite muddy, and my shoes were soaked due to the snow. Now we just had to walk another hour into town!







By the time Nina and I got back to our neighborhood it was 5:00 am and my feet hurt and my legs were sore. I just took off my muddy shoes, rinsed the mud off my pants, changed, ate a snack and went to bed. The hike was amazing, and despite walking for 8 hours and probably over 10 miles, it was definitely worth it.