Iceland in Pictures

Now I’ve actually never posted my name on this blog, but I can tell you that this little farm in Iceland and I share the same name and hence is a great favorite. Also, the mountain up above has some crazy cliffs. Most of these cliffs are only held together by, well nothing. The farm is actually in constant danger of rock slides, hence its name (which I’m not telling).

A couple of years ago the family woke up to a great rumble sound which ended with a big bang. They ran out to see that the barn had been hit by a giant boulder. The boulder was about the same size as the barn. Luckily the cows were out and nobody was in the building at the time.

I also remember once driving past the farm and to a nearby farm. Once I got there they asked me how I’d made it. They said that the road I’d come along was closed because of a giant rock slide. Apparently I had just made it through before it blocked the road. Driving back later that day it was kind of eerie to see the enormous boulders and mountain of mud being bulldozed of the road I’d driven soon before. There still is a large rock sitting out in the middle of a field from that day. I generally point it out to people I travel with. That rock had come down the mountain at such great speeds that the elevated highway functioned as a ramp, making the rock airborne. You can see how the giant boulder had punched through a wall of turf and dug itself into the ground like a meteorite, yet it had left a fence unscathed while airborne.

The pillar you can see in the photo (look like bunny ears from this angle) is named Ingimundur (a male name). This pillar is what remains of a lava channel in an ancient volcano and is the only piece of rock that won’t crumble when you touch it. Therefor it is actually regularly climbed by the small Icelandic climbing community. Climbing the pillar itself is not that difficult, but getting up to it is the really hard part (and dangerous). You must scramble up the moss, mud and lower crumbling cliffs, while dodging rockfall.

Oh and the farm is not only troubled by rockfall, right behind that mountain, only a couple of kilometers from the farm, lies the famous Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

Photo by Christopher Lund • Instagram.

(via photosphotosphotos)

Iceland has no airforce, but still has air superiority

Iceland may have no military of any sort, but we can still ground all flights in our hemisphere.

I just dreamed that Eyjafjallajökull was erupting again.

ohaneth:

Cracks of Doom - Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Eruptions by skarpi on Flickr.

Imagine driving into a cloud of ash such as this one or living inside one.

Photo by Fredrik Holm

(via mwsk-deactivated20110917)

Eyjafjallajökull eruption 2010

Beautiful. Haven’t seen this picture before. It really shows the mix of fire, ash and ice. I can assure you that this is so much larger than what you might perceive from the picture.

(Source: telegraph.co.uk, via jonwithabullet)

Oh nice one. There are so many pictures of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption circulating tumblr, that it is quite rare to see a new one. This is a great picture.

(Source: violinkitten)

I have no idea who this is, standing by the Fimmvörðuháls eruption, but it does remind me of a great story from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

There are these two old brothers that live alone on a farm not far from the volcano. They had been forced to evacuate, unwillingly to Hvolsvöllur. However as the eruption stabilized they were allowed to return to the farm. A young TV reporter interviewed the brothers. She spoke with them as if they were a bit naive, something the brothers picked up on. When she asked “Isn’t it nice to be back and be able to stay with the animals?” one of them responded fussily ”With the animals? We sleep inside, they sleep outside.”

They also made it quite clear that they were not happy with having been forced to evacuate. “Our family has always lived here and there has never been a flood because of the volcano.” They were also not at all surprised that the volcano was erupting. They could see it from the weather in the weeks before that en eruption was underway.

(Source: goodreads.com, via skybrarian)