Earlier this year, one of my group chats (this one mostly consisting of running buddies) was buzzing with messages about a potential trip to Iceland. My friend Will had been in contact with the founders of Rogue Expeditions and was trying to gauge interest from us about getting a group together to get the company to add an extra trip to their already busy calendar. We needed at least 8 people for it to happen, and after a quick conversation with my girlfriend Tate, I let Will I was in if this hopeful plan came to fruition.
It helped that Tate had already been to Iceland for two weeks a few years ago with her family, traveling basically the entire ring road in a rented car. Since she doesn't care much for running, but loves traveling as much as I do, a trip like this would (and always will be) a bit of a delicate debate: about using paid-time off, the overall price, and seeing parts interesting and beautiful parts of the world... not together. She deserves a shout-out for being so encouraging, so wanted to ensure I included it early on.
The wheels started moving faster than I anticipated, as I didn't want to get my hopes up too high in case the trip didn't come to fruition. Another running buddy, Dan, and his wife also threw their hats in the ring - so we were already halfway there. We began sharing the link to the trip details in our friends, family, even work circles (more on that later) to try and recruit more people to sign up. The trip was to be at the end of August, but we needed a confirmed full trip by around the end of February for it to be a go. Surprisingly, we all ended up putting our deposits down before Valentine's Day. Now, we just had to impatiently wait 6 months to visit the land of fire and ice.
Fast forward to August 25th, and myself, Will, Dan and Anah were boarding a plane to Reykjavik (via an ultimately annoying layover in Newark). We arrived at 7am Friday morning, a bit sleep deprived - I think I got about a 3 hour nap on the nearly 6 hour overnight flight - but excited for the week ahead. We took a bus into the city, dropped off our luggage at the bus depot, and headed for a coffee shop. It ended up being right next to Hallgrimskirkja (the church of Hallgrimur), Iceland's tallest church, and the country's sixth-tallest building overall. We caffeinated up, walked around more of the downtown area, popped our heads into some gift shops, drank a White Russian at The Big Lebowski Bar (because the dude abides), and enjoyed lunch at a local brewery called Bastard Brew & Food. Here, a former coworker of mine at TikTok (Kim) met up with us, as she had flown in the night before. She had put her name on the waitlist at the beginning of the year when I had first dropped the link in a running interested group chat on the company internal communication tool. Then we all headed back to the bus station where our guides would be picking us up to officially start the trip, and we got to meet the rest of the people joining us on the trip.
Day 1 (Friday) - Hotel Kriunes / Heiðmörk
We got to the hotel to check in and get settled for our first two nights in Iceland on the southeast outskirts of the city. We were just getting started to know our guides, Sean and Gunnur, as Sean began explaining the optional "shake-out" run - and the different options available for it. Our hotel was situated on a lake, and on the other side of it was a great hiking trail that connected to the two mile trail around the lake from our side. If we wanted to connect to that trail system, the "easy" shake out would be NINE miles. I laughed at this in my three hour of sleep in 36 hours, jet-lagged haze, full well knowing I intended to the longest distance offered all 7 days of the trip (I never said I would do them all without comment or complaint, however).
Some people opted for a 4 mile out and back, but quite a few were just as stubborn as me, and for good reason: the weather. Coming from a summer in Texas full of 100 degree days and basically no rain, we had lucked out our first day in Iceland with some uncharacteristically sunny weather. No way I was passing up a beautiful trail run in 55 degree sunshine. I did however have to make a pit-stop off the trail about halfway through the run as the shrimp tacos from Bastard Brew made their way through me (apologies to the camp site barbecue pit I had to squat behind) but hey it wouldn't be a trail running trip if that didn't happen at least once, so at least I got it out of the way early (happened on the Flume Trail in Tahoe back in 2016 - sorry people I don't make the rules). After the run we met for dinner at the hotel restaurant (the first of many delicious dinners we had on the trip), and Sean broke down what the next day would have in store for us. Dan and I were both struggling to keep our eyes open for most of the meal, and I promptly fell asleep almost immediately once I got back to the room around 8:15pm. I was excited I had stayed up all day so that I could hopefully get a good night sleep and miss out on any extended jet lag. When I woke up, I was a bit confused since it was so dark in the room (it was only dark from about 10pm to 3am the week we were there) and I was assuming it had to be like 5 in the morning at this point. I grabbed my phone and looked at the time... 9:30 (PM). I had succeeded in taking an hour nap, and was feeling as wide awake as I ever had before (it felt like 4:30pm to me back in Austin). I tried to fall back asleep before eventually playing on my phone a bit, and luckily my roommate Will woke up about 30 minutes later and laughed when he saw me playing on my phone as he was just as awake as I was.
After about an hour of chatting and looking at our phones, we decided to go for a walk outside, and wouldn't you know it, we were able to the northern lights! At dinner we had made a pact with some other folks in our group that we would all try to wake each other up if anyone saw them at any point during the trip (since typically they aren't very visible until starting in more like October) so we went and tried to wake up a few people, and by the time we got back outside they were mostly gone. But one girl in our group was able to catch a decent photo of them, which was good because Will and I wanted to make sure we weren't crazy, and evidently the lights came back out again around 2am and put on an even better light show. I am still thankful I got to see them at all, and once we got back to our room Will and I didn't bother fighting the jet lag and streamed the Austin FC game on our phones (a fun win against LAFC) before finally dozing off around 2am, alarms set for 7am and a big day ahead of us.
Day 2 (Saturday) - Búrfellsgjá and the Blue Lagoon
After what felt like another long nap, we woke up to some breakfast before heading out on our first destination run of the trip. We'd be heading to one of the most beautiful trails in the Reykjavik area through the Búrfellsgjá Lava Channel. Mt. Búrfell was formed in a single volcanic eruption just over eight thousand years ago. Fissure (gjá) is really not the correct term for Búrfellsgjá because it is essentially a beautiful and seemingly intact lava channel, just over three kilometers long. The run actually started in a wooded area our guide Gunnur was familiar with, which included a nice view out towards the ocean. There aren't really any "forests" in Iceland, thanks to the Vikings and other Icelandic residents from centuries ago cutting down all the trees for ships, housing, etc. The run ended up being around 7 miles with some rolling hills, tough volcanic rock sections, sandy valleys, and ended at a natural stream that we took sips of water from to commemorate our finish. Most of the water in Iceland is incredibly clean thanks to all the lava rock it filters through.
Afterwards, we went to a little park area for a picnic, before heading to probably the most popular tourist attraction in all of Iceland, the Blue Lagoon. You have probably seen the pictures before of the teal / aqua water that almost doesn't look real. The pools themselves were basically created by mistake at first, supplied by water used in the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power station. I was skeptical at first, afraid their would be way too many tourists for my liking (I had envisioned this trip to be somewhat "off-the-grid" but once I was in the water, drinking a Gull beer and wearing a silica mask, I pretty much instantly understood the appeal. It is beautiful, the water looks and feels amazing, and to be fair your skin looks great afterwards. Some things are popular for a reason, so this is one of those expensive stops I would actually still recommend to anyone coming to Iceland in the future. It also helped that we once again had lucked out with some sunny weather, so much so that I actually got a little sunburned while we were at the lagoon, something I didn't know was possible at that latitude.
I grabbed a coffee from the cafe and we loaded up the bus back to the hotel - but not without our first (and I guess only?) injury of the trip, as one of the women from Georgia had stubbed her toe on the sharp volcanic rock while walking in sandals, leading to some blood and the first aid kid. Once back at the hotel, a few of us were able to watch an Arsenal EPL game in our room until it was time for another delicious dinner. Afterwards a few of us hung out on the patio of our room overlooking the lake, dreaming about the rest of the trip ahead of us. The next day would be a big one in regards to distance traveled on the bus, the amount of stops we'd have, and the sights we would see. Will and I didn't try too hard to get to bed early this time, and instead watched Into the Spiderverse for awhile before eventually attempting to get another long nap in ahead of Sunday.
Day 3 (Sunday) - Reykjadalur Hot Springs and The Golden Circle
After more like 6 hours of sleep this time around and another quick breakfast, we were on the bus headed south. This time we wouldn't be coming back to our hotel for the first two nights. We were headed to the town of Hveragerði (a fun one to pronounce and eventually became one of the jokes of the trip - "What happens in Hervy-Gerdy stays in Hveragerði"). The run itself took place in the Reykjadalur valley, taking us into some mini-mountains and around some natural springs. The longer option took us on what could only be described as sheep paths, which was confirmed when the trail itself was actually blocked in front of us for a time by actual sheep. We actually got our first taste of some more authentic Iceland weather, with some strong wind gusts, a little fog / drizzle, but overall the just over 7 hilly miles were beautiful and extremely fun.
The highlight of this run was the natural thermal hot spring river that ran through the middle of it, connecting with a cool stream to let you essentially choose your preferred temperature for a dip: warmer to the left, cooler to the right. Most of the other people on the trip had a similar mentality to me, which is you never know if/when you'll ever been in Iceland again, so you're not going to NOT get in the natural water places when given the opportunity (even if it means you have to put on your shoes again afterwards and finish the last 2 miles of the run a little damp). It was easy to dry off however since most of the last mile was a downhill we got to "bomb" down, save for slowing down to make room for some riders on those famous Icelandic ponies we didn't want to spook.
After we got back to the bus, we headed over to the local swimming hole in Hveragerði, which our guide Gunnur's family has been using for decades. This was more of a man-made pool / hot tub set up situation, but it also included a cold-plunge bucket which again a lot of the group felt obligated to try. You can probably already sense a theme here, which is basically all of our runs ended with us getting into some form of hot springs / body of water. We showered up and headed to lunch at a really cool new hotel in town that had food trucks (albeit inside) along with a couple bars and a coffee shop - all of which felt like it wouldn't be out of place in Austin, let alone in some small town in southwest Iceland. So I would definitely add the Greenhouse Hotel as a lunch stop on your itineraries.
After lunch we got back on the bus and headed to our next stop, Þingvellir National Park in Selfoss. Our guide did let us know that some of Game of Thrones had been filmed in the park, but what it is really known for is the Alþing (Althing), the site of Iceland's parliament from the 10th to 18th centuries. It was cool to walk through the park and learn some history (thanks to Gunnur), and then it was back on the bus to head to another well-known stop.
Next, we went to one of the more picturesque stops of the entire trip, Gullfoss falls (the golden waterfall). I had (sadly) heard of / seen this amazing place on Netflix before (the sadly part due to it being in that Zac Efron travel show) but even that couldn't have prepared me for how beautiful (and powerful) the falls, located in the canyon of the Hvítá river, were in person. I had spent some time talking to my therapist before the trip about trying to stay present as much as I could while in Iceland, and this stop was where I tried my hardest to put this in practice. I spent most of the time just listening to the sound of the water crashing over the edge, feeling the mist hit my face, almost drinking it all in. It wasn't always easy, as this was a very crowded tourist attraction, but again sometimes things are touristy for a reason, and I can't imagine coming to Iceland and not seeing this in person.
The stops weren't over there, as next we hit up Iceland's version of old faithful in Geysir. The great geysir was the first geyser described in a printed source and the first known to modern Europeans. Having never seen a geyser in person before, it was cool to see the water shoot high out of the ground. However, I was getting a bit tired at this point from all the riding in the bus (and still not being caught up on sleep since the flight over) so after a short period I ended up in the gift shop, enjoying the absolute BEST cup of hot chocolate I have ever had. Seriously, get one if you go there. Finally, we ended at our hotel for the next two nights in Flúðir, where we ate dinner and where I finally got a decent night sleep, ahead of another upcoming day of firsts for me.
Day 4 (Monday) - Langjökull Glacier, Friðheimar, and the (not so) Secret Lagoon
Not sure I'll ever have a Monday like this one again. Finally feeling fully rested after a true 8+ hours of hard sleep, I was ready for a true adventure. We ate breakfast in the hotel lobby / restaurant (which was basically taken over by our party for the duration of our two night stay) and packed our gear for a big day. We needed to be on the road early to meet with our guides, who would be taking us up onto Iceland's second largest glaicer, Langjökull. We got out of our van with above average sized tires, and into a similar sized van but with much larger, easy to inflate and deflate, tires - which would be needed for the F-roads we would be taking across the highlands to get to basecamp. F-roads are unpaved gravel tracks that only open during the summer months and are only accessible in 4×4 SUV's.
After a bumpy ride across the desert, we got to the cabin where we would be changing into our gear before we headed the rest of the way to the edge of the glacier. This morning's adventure was not running across the ice, but snowmobiling! After some safety tips and instruction how-to's, we paired up and headed north up into the ice and snow. The view was amazing at first, and hearing the cracking and ice beneath our sleds was magical. After about 15 minutes or so, the visibility got next to the nothing, a mix of fog and windy and potentially some snow? Was really hard to tell, but still fun to be cruising along following each other up higher on the glacier where there was snow now under our skis on top of the ice.
After about half an hour, we got off the machines and had a snowball fight, learned some history of the glacier, made some snow angels, and then switched drivers as we headed back down to basecamp. I was the driver for the second shift, and nearly took a tumble once (immediately before the group in front of us did in fact flip their sled - no injuries thankfully) but the ride overall was incredibly fun and beautiful. Coming back down onto the ice near the edge of the glacier, the clouds opened up and we had a beautiful view as we followed a river of melting snow and ice down our path from before. My first time snowmobiling and hopefully not my last (but not sure I can ever go somewhere else that will top a glacier in Iceland).
After we got our gear turned back in, got back on the big bus, and headed back into the highlands, our glacier guide dropped us off with our original tour van and driver, and she drove us down a seldom used F-road, where the next part of our day was to begin. We'd be running along another F-road into a "forest" (again, not many of these in Iceland) before we headed to our next stop for lunch. The run itself was 5 miles of gravel / sandy F-road with some rolling hills, followed by a very steep hill as we got into the forest which meant for most of the final mile we got to bomb down a very fast and fun trail in the woods. It was felt like throwing in a fartlek at the end of the run, which felt nice to get some speed in our legs in the middle of the trip. Then we loaded into the van to head to lunch.
Day 5 (Tuesday) - Landmannalaugar and the legend of Dan
Landmannalaugar is a location in Iceland's Fjallabak Nature Reserve in the Highlands. It is at the edge of the Laugahraun lava field, formed in an eruption in approximately 1477. It is known for its natural geothermal hot springs and surrounding landscape and is famous for its colorful rhyolite mountains and epic day hikes. We got to this epic reserve via a long "road" trip on some bumpy F-roads in the highlands, with a stop at Frostastaðavatn which looked to be a giant crater lake with winds so strong we could lean into them and now fall down. The weather was finally reaching full "Iceland" on us, with rain greeting us as we got to the entry of the park.
After some notes from Sean at basecamp, we headed off on a slightly shorter version of what had originally been planned, due to the wind and low visibility the higher up we went with all the drizzle and fog. We'd go up almost 1,000 vertical feet within the first 3 miles, before coming back down and winding down in the valley and next to the river, ending in the lava fields. It was a cold, beautiful 6 miles in full, and even with less than stellar visibility was still one of the most beautiful runs I've ever done.
Afterwards, we continued the trend of ending all our runs in a pool of warm water, walking almost a half mile on what I can only describe as a long "pier" from the visitor center to the Laugasvæði (bathing place). Once there, we began stripping down to whatever level of modesty we felt comfortable with (there were eventually a few Europeans who hopped in topless), but before my buddy Dan could get all the way in, a group of motorbike enthusiasts who had been cruising across Iceland and had already been in the pool before us swam over and asked Dan if they would go buy "as much beer" as he possibly could. To my surprise, Dan said yes - and one of the fine gents promptly handed over his credit card for Dan to pay with. Now remember, we are well off the beaten track here, half a mile from the visitor center (which was basically just a shack, a tent, and a few school buses converted for mixed use) and we were already cold and wet. As Dan trodded off, we all laughed about how there was no way they would sell him enough beer for everyone (easily over 20 people), and even if they did - how would he carry it the half mile back to the hot pot?
Well, about 10 minutes later, we spot tall Dan carrying what looks like 3 cases of Gull beer in a giant container over his head, and everyone immediately started laughing and cheering. An English bloke broke out into chants of "Dan you fucking legend!" and spent a majority of our time in the hot springs asking if they could trade the Dan from their group for our Dan. Dan had taken an empty bucket labeled "free stuff" that would often include camping supplies for backpackers beginning the three day hike to Thórsmörk, and did what legends do. It was probably my favorite hot springs experience of the trip, and afterwards we dried off, got some hot soup from one of the school buses, and got back in our van to head back to our next lodge for the night.
The new "hotel" was more like a cottage, built at the base of a volcano called Eyjafjallajökull, and apparently the recording artist Sting had once stayed there for a week. We enjoyed an amazing home cooked meal and spent time drinking wine by the fireplace, before once again crashing hard for the night thanks to the rain outside. That rain would end up altering the remaining days of our trip, however.
Day 6 (Wednesday) - þetta reddast and Seljalandsfoss
Once we made it to Seljalandsfoss, it was absolutely beautiful, and actually already being soaking wet made the excursion a bit more exciting, as we had no fear to hike in the stream to get to the first waterfall hidden in what could almost be called a cave, and getting to walk behind the other falls. Luckily the van was in the parking lot and quickly shuttled us back to the lodge.
Day 7 (Thursday) - Thórsmörk
We woke up, loaded our luggage into the trailer, but took off in the bus with the trailer staying behind at the cottage for us to pick up on the way back from the national park. The road to get there would be bumpy and include multiple river crossings. We were headed to Thórsmörk, a mountain ridge named after the Norse god Thor. It is situated in the south between the glaciers Tindfjallajökull and Eyjafjallajökull, and with all the rain the two days prior, the river crossings on the road were coming more and more often.
Unfortunately, by the time we got close to the main entrance of the area we wanted to reach to run from, we hit a river that our van (even with large tires) couldn't make it across. We watched a bigger bus get stuck in the middle of a newly swelling river, and decided to backtrack a bit and do a shorter run by a glacier we had already successfully driven past. It was a bummer to miss the biggest run of the trip, but Þetta reddast and no one complained about not putting ourselves or the van in any danger.
That was until about 2 miles into the run, one of the guides suggested we hike up one of the ridges to run around the top and enjoy the view from up there. From the valley we were in, it didn't seem like it would be that difficult to make it up, but looks can be deceiving. By the time we were over halfway up, rocks began falling all around us and it was time to make the decision of either committing to getting all the way up or turning back down. I have a fear of heights, but oddly that made going back down seem like the worse of the two options, as going back up seemed to promise an easier run down the ridge back towards the van then trying to shuffle down all the loose rocks I had just come up. I put my head down and crawled my way to the top, a little too fast ultimately, as then I had to wait at the top for over 20 minutes while everyone else either made it up or turned back.
I managed to find a large boulder that wasn't going anywhere to lean against and try to stave off my potential vertigo, and eventually everyone either made it up or back down safely. We made it back to the van where we had an impromptu picnic, and everyone was able to laugh about what ended up being probably the most dangerous half hour of the trip. Ultimately I wasn't super despondent about the shorter day, as I was dealing with a sore-throat and fatigue from the day before (more on that later). We loaded back into the van, grabbed the trailer after we got through all the river crossings again, and headed back into Reykjavik for our last night.
Once back into the city and checked into our hotel, Will and I headed out on a mission to find a tattoo shop to help us commemorate this epic adventure we were on that was winding down. We succeeded when we came across Street Rats Tattoo, and after chatting with the artist, both wound up getting Þetta reddast tattoos, me on my calf and Will on his arm. Initially we had talked about getting a puffin or some other Icelandic animal, but we didn't make it to puffin island so "it will all work out in the end" seemed like a fitting way to punctuate the trip (in Viking script, of course).
We met back up with the rest of the gang for a quick beer before heading to the last dinner of the trip at an upscale restaurant called the Fish Company, and then back to the hotel lobby bar for the "awards ceremony." It was a great way to cap off the week, and fittingly enough my award was of course the Þetta reddast award. Afterwards, a few of us went out and hit The Drunken Rabbit, an Irish themed bar not far from our hotel, where there was live music playing and Guinness drafts pouring, and managed to close the bar down staying out until 1am.
