Hello Steemians! It's Peter here to share the next part of my Iceland experience, which involves a journey into a centre of the largest glacier in Iceland!
Part 5: Hunting for some Ice Caves
What are ice caves?
The ice caves we visited were ones that formed inside glaciers and they form from water running underneath or through the glacier or due to geothermal heat from volcanoes underneath the ice. The glacier we went to was formed from geothermal heat.
When did people start exploring ice caves?
According to our guide, people have only been exploring ice caves for not even a decade. It was only a recent activity that has spiked in interest, attracting people from all around the world (including us).
About the glacier we visited and the guides who led us
The glacier we visited was Vatnajökull which is the largest glacier in Iceland covering 8,100 square km (more than 8% of Iceland). It was within this glacier we went in search of ice caves. The guides we went with were the Local Guides of Vatnajökull and they were great in providing information about not just the glacier and ice caves, but also the rest of Iceland and even the politics. I would recommend it to anyone exploring the ice caves.
How we got to the glacier
To get to the ice caves required a monster truck that had been modified from top to bottom. The suspension on that car was ridiculous, I bounced from left to right as we went up and down the hills. It really was no easy feat to get to the glacier and a normal car definitely would not have cut it.
Walking along the glacier
We walked alongside the glacier after putting on helmets with headlights and a harness. It was all rock and sand with so sign of greenery because it was only recently that the glacier had melted in this area to reveal what was underneath. The guide mentioned that this area was of great interest to scientists as it emulated the beginning of life on earth.
At the base of the glacier we fitted clamps onto our shoes. It was basically a metal skeleton with spikes that would help us grip to the ice as we walked along. To walk with the clamps actually didn’t feel uncomfortable, other than having to use extra force to dig my spikes into the ice.
Being on the glacier felt like I was on a different continent. The ice stretched as far as I could see and there was no sign of life at all, just ice everywhere. We had to be careful while walking as there were cracks in the glacier that would mean almost certain death if were to slip into one.
The ice caves!
The hike to the ice cave took around 3 hrs with no breaks in the middle. We had to walk to where the glacier ended and entered through a hole at the base of it. Being inside the glacier was surreal, other than it being a lot colder, there was a beautiful blue hue which gave the inside a very calming atmosphere. Apparently, this blue hue in the ice was due to the ice being so compact that all air is squeezed out allowing only the reflection of the blue end of the light spectrum. We spent around 1.5hrs inside the cave as there was a lot to see and I enjoyed every second of it.
