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Outside Magazine December 2004
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The Hard Way
Freezer Burn (Cont.)

ICELAND IS AN ISLAND country the size of Virginia floating just below the Arctic Circle in the North Atlantic. Founded more than a millennium ago by Norwegian Vikings and Irish monks (whom the Vikings later enslaved), Iceland was isolated from the rest of the world for most of its history and consequently developed an iconoclastic, homegrown culture.

The 290,000 Icelanders still speak tenth-century Norse and revere literature. Young children can still recite medieval folklore: the Saga of Ref the Sly, the Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, and Eirik the Red's Saga ("Filth-Eyjolf killed the slaves near Skeidsbrekkur above Vatnshorn. For this, Eirik slew Filth-Eyjolf . . .").

Hakarl (putrefied shark) is a national dish, chess a national sport, glacier driving a national passion, and the relentless weather a national conversation. Iceland contains Europe's most powerful waterfall, Dettifoss—running at more than 21,000 cubic feet per second during late summer—and its largest glacier, Vatnajökull, which covers 3,240 square miles (although, like glaciers around the world, it's shrinking).

Such superlative geography has bred an adventure culture in which ice-climbing routes far outnumber rock routes, and kayakers run whitewater one week and the squalling Denmark Strait the next. In recent years, Iceland has become a coveted destination for active travelers of all stripes, including those who engage in one of the most idiosyncratic of sports: glaciospeleology.

By one romantic definition, glaciospeleology is "the line of research having to do with the exploration of a glacier's heart." In practice, this means climbing through bright shafts and dark tunnels inside a moving glacier—three-dimensional ice climbing in passageways constantly deforming.

Who would be up for such an undertaking? The Iceland Tourist Board had one word for me: Karl. I e-mailed him two pages of questions—how big are the caves, how often do they collapse, do we need drysuits, oxygen tanks? He responded with two sentences: "You come over. We find out."


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