Your Wildest Adventure: Lost in the Lava Fields

February 3, 2010 0 Comments

This post was originally posted by WildJunket @ Wild Junket.
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‘Your Wildest Adventure’ is a series featuring the most thrilling experiences from travel writers while jaunting around the world. This week’s edition is a story from Stephanie Yoder who blogs over at Twenty-Something Travel, charming readers with her quirky writing style. She shares with us her experience of getting lost in dangerous grounds. Sulfur Pool, Krafla- by The.Rohit.

Lost in the Lava Fields

That sign was really getting on my nerves. “The ground is hot and dangerous to cross” it pronounced in understated blue type, “Stay on marked paths.” For good measure it added, “You are here at your own risk.” Fair enough. I know there are times to get off the beaten track and that wandering the surface of an active volcano is not one of those times. Staying on the marked path was a great idea… only the marked path had evaporated in a maze of dark steaming rock.

Up in Northern Iceland, about a ten hour drive from Reykjavik is the Krafla Caldera, one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes. Krafla erupted frequently throughout the 70’s and 80’s; last spurting lava into the sky in 1984, the year I was born. Geothermal rumblings still keep the ground hot enough that nearby farmers attempting to plant potatoes saw their crops emerge already boiled.

Unlike your typical mountain shaped volcano, Krafla is mostly level save a few gentle hills. At one end a geothermal power plant attempts to harness the monster’s energy. Further away tourists can crowd around several areas of geothermal activity with bubbling mud pots and whistling geysers. They can also drive up to the immense crater known as Viti, a word which simply means “hell.”

Leirhnjúkur , the area I was currently attempting to traverse, is a lava field produced by the last 1984 eruption. Even 24 years later the ground crackles, steams and hisses menacingly. Aside from sickly green moss, no vegetation grows in the black brittle expanse of dried lava. The wooden pathway that led me into the field had disappeared, replaced by sporadic yellow markers that gave little indication of which rocks were safe and which might give way, resulting in barbequed limbs.

Steam rose all around. The uneven tar colored field stretched into the distance. It was like walking on the moon or mars. The landscape was distinctly extraterrestrial. If this was the aftermath of a small eruption, I couldn’t imagine the devastation a large one could cause.

Snow on an Active Volcano

After a series of Russian roulette guesses I finally made my way around to the other side of the large hill that was a centerpiece of this “trail.” With great shock I found my path blocked again- this time by snow! A patch of white stuff the size of a football field completely obscured the trail.

Trudging across the snow in my tank top and scarf I eventually managed to make my way back to the car and defrost myself while watching the steam rise in the distance. Snow. In June. In the center of a hissing volcano. Just when I think I’ve gotten a handle on Iceland it throws me an icy curveball.

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StephanieYoder runs the travel blog Twenty-Something Travel, which is dedicated to assisting new or young travelers with the skills, resources and opportunities available to them for travel abroad. When not traveling the world she lives in Washington DC.