The Highlands of Iceland

First Impres­sions and False Assumptions

To make any assump­tion that the High­lands of Ice­land are an exten­sion of, or sim­i­lar to, oth­er areas of Ice­land would be an entire­ly under­stand­able error of judge­ment. Even if we are allowed to see images of the High­lands, there do appear to be dif­fer­ences, but com­mon qual­i­ties, name­ly areas of recent vol­canic activ­i­ty, vibrant green moss­es, and a plen­i­tude of water­falls, sug­gest a sim­i­lar­i­ty with its sur­round­ing lowlands.

Leav­ing the Ring Road Behind

My intro­duc­to­ry vis­it to Ice­land was many years ago, and my first sight­ings of the land­scape from a plane had me con­cerned that this was going to be a bar­ren place, open to the ele­ments and a chal­lenge to appre­ci­ate. Thank­ful­ly, I was proved wrong, and the pil­grim­age along the south coast was invig­o­rat­ing and inspir­ing, and still is to this day. With a col­lec­tion of vis­its under my belt and hav­ing dri­ven all of Route 1 sev­er­al times, wit­ness­ing the numer­ous vari­a­tions in this epic land­scape, a for­tu­itous oppor­tu­ni­ty arose for me to vis­it the High­lands. I was teach­ing a pho­tog­ra­ph­er large for­mat pho­tog­ra­phy in the UK, and through con­ver­sa­tions about his life, I soon realised he was liv­ing in Ice­land, had a colos­sal knowl­edge of the High­lands and owned a spe­cial­ly adapt­ed 4 X 4. A few months lat­er, I was in his com­pa­ny, leav­ing the paved roads behind and being guid­ed through some of the areas of the High­lands that had been out of reach.

A Land­scape Still Being Formed

To under­stand what the High­lands are like is to under­stand how Ice­land was formed and how it is still evolv­ing to this day. In geo­log­i­cal terms, Ice­land is being torn in two as the Eurasian and North Amer­i­can tec­ton­ic plates of the earth’s sur­face move away from each oth­er, which are posi­tioned diag­o­nal­ly right beneath the coun­try. Wher­ev­er this type of geo­log­i­cal activ­i­ty takes place on earth it results in large areas of vol­canic and geot­her­mal activ­i­ty. As a result, Ice­land has been the host to 130 vol­ca­noes since it formed 60 mil­lion years ago, 30 of which are still active. This vol­canic activ­i­ty has cre­at­ed one of the youngest land­mass­es in the world and con­tin­ues to per­pet­u­al­ly change. Even today, an area on the Reyk­janes Penin­su­la is in a tran­si­tion­al state, pro­duc­ing fresh lava flows as Iceland’s newest fis­sure vol­cano, Fagrads­fall, reg­u­lar­ly erupts. In some of the old­est parts of Ice­land in the Vat­na­jokull region fur­ther east, the land is actu­al­ly ris­ing as mil­lions of tonnes of glacial ice melts from the land into the sea caus­ing iso­sta­t­ic rebound. As geo­log­i­cal activ­i­ty has no con­cern for human life, this could result in the fish­ing har­bour at Hor­nafjor­dour near Hofn being ren­dered to shal­low to use in a mat­ter of years.

Being a coun­try of huge tran­si­tion, along with being so young, is the rea­son its appear­ance is like no oth­er and this is observed even more when you first expe­ri­ence the High­lands. The High­lands of Ice­land are only acces­si­ble from late June until late Sep­tem­ber. Beyond these dates, and because Ice­land is just out­side the Arc­tic Cir­cle, these high­er regions become impass­able with win­ter snow­fall and remain frozen in time until the fol­low­ing summer.

It takes a ded­i­cat­ed trav­eller to ven­ture into these parts. As there are no paved roads your first require­ment is a 4 X 4 vehi­cle and the con­fi­dence to do what many of us would nev­er con­sid­er ratio­nal: dri­ve it through a riv­er. As I men­tioned, on my first vis­it I was com­fort­able sit­ting back and enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence of descend­ing into the glacial melt-waters as they reached halfway up the car door and cov­ered the bumpers whilst being dri­ven by my guide. When it comes to com­mit­ting your own vehi­cle to such a cross­ing, every scrap of your com­mon sense tells you it is the most pre­pos­ter­ous thing to do and you should stop on dry land and sim­ply have a pic­nic and enjoy the views.

Access, Com­mit­ment and Riv­er Crossings

It takes a ded­i­cat­ed trav­eller to ven­ture into these parts. As there are no paved roads your first require­ment is a 4 X 4 vehi­cle and the con­fi­dence to do what many of us would nev­er con­sid­er ratio­nal, dri­ve it through a riv­er. As I men­tioned, on my first vis­it I was com­fort­able sit­ting back and enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence of descend­ing into the glacial melt­wa­ters as they reached halfway up the car door and cov­ered the bumpers whilst being dri­ven by my guide. When it comes to com­mit­ting your own vehi­cle to such a cross­ing, every scrap of your com­mon sense tells you it is the most pre­pos­ter­ous thing to do and you should stop on dry land and sim­ply have a pic­nic and enjoy the views. If see­ing the high­lands is your aim, you will have to dri­ve across rivers and take trust in the car that you have hired. Some of the road sur­faces, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ones pass­ing over the huge vol­canic ash deserts, are very smooth and dri­ving them is akin to wear­ing your slip­pers on a deep pile car­pet, oth­ers have stretch­es where rou­tine main­te­nance has cre­at­ed a ribbed effect that vibrate the vehi­cle, and you, to such an extent that you feel den­tal fill­ings could be lost.

What I am describ­ing here is an adven­ture, laced with excite­ment and sea­soned by the weath­er which sel­dom remains change­less. The ele­va­tion of the High­lands could nev­er be described as alpine, with its high­est point reach­ing just under 3000 meters above sea lev­el, but we must remind our­selves that we are posi­tioned on a high plane with­in an island that sits in the mid­dle of the Atlantic Ocean. For any­one that has vis­it­ed the south coast of Ice­land before, we can all recount the huge ocean swell and asso­ci­at­ed waves it cre­ates togeth­er with the raw pow­er of the winds at the beach­es. These winds are a fea­ture of the High­lands also and play an evo­lu­tion­ary role in how the land­scape looks. 

Wind, Ele­va­tion and Exposure

It is a land­scape of rhythms and pat­terns all fash­ioned by wind and water. The main fea­tures of this tru­ly unbe­liev­able place are the many vol­canic craters and asso­ci­at­ed ash and lavas they vio­lent­ly erupt­ed, but as time moves on their edges are soft­ened and sculp­tured by the pass­ing storms and wind. As the remain­ing glac­i­ers con­tin­ue to melt, thou­sands of rivers and water­falls pep­per the High­lands pro­duc­ing intri­cate pat­terns as they fan across the land­scape head­ing towards the ocean. On occa­sions I drove tracks that led me upwards to the rim of craters, now filled with water as blue as indi­go, and as you turn to look at the land­scape below you, your eyes are met with a lat­tice of rivers cut­ting through both black and ver­dant green plains.

Through­out the dif­fer­ing areas of the High­lands of Ice­land you are for­ev­er sur­round­ed by evi­dence of vol­canic activ­i­ty. Land­scapes that are mono­chro­mat­ic, cov­ered in ash, and show very few signs of life have not yet had the time for the ear­li­est veg­e­ta­tion to estab­lish and remain lunar-like and bar­ren. For many land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers, this may appear to be the least appeal­ing envi­ron­ment in which to work. Fur­ther­more, as there is very lit­tle colour and the ground is dark, when the clouds and rains arrive, it can feel quite bleak and very remote. It is moments like this that make this land­scape unique. You are immersed in a place with a scarci­ty of life, and oth­er than the vehi­cle tracks, very few signs of mankind. Occa­sion­al­ly, out of the dark grey you will see craters and vol­canic vents sur­round­ed by deep red rocks and stones, a tes­ta­ment to the incred­i­ble heat that changed the sta­tus of the rocks dur­ing the eruptions.

Only a few weeks ago, I was high on the vol­canic plains when mists and rain arrived. This soon gave way to breaks in the cloud as the storm skies grad­u­al­ly broke up and winds pushed through. From stand­ing in a dark grey land­scape, made even dark­er now that the rains had fall­en onto the ground, the the­atre of light that occurred was mes­meris­ing. For the next hour, I wit­nessed shafts of sun­light that pierced their way through the clouds and raked across the land­scape at a speed that looked like animation. 

Land­man­nalau­gar: When Colour Returns

This is a land­scape of con­trast. As you approach the Land­man­nalau­gar area, you are pre­sent­ed with colours that, when pho­tographed and pre­sent­ed to oth­ers, would under­stand­ably con­clude you had been overzeal­ous in your image edit­ing, in par­tic­u­lar, sat­u­ra­tion. Lunar gives way to lush, and the ver­dant greens of the moss­es cov­er the hills and moun­tain­sides. Some are pos­i­tive­ly flu­o­res­cent and, on an over­cast day, can com­fort­ably fool one’s mind into believ­ing the sun had arrived. The geol­o­gy in this region con­sists main­ly of Rhy­o­lite, which is sil­i­ca and quartz-rich, result­ing in a very pale and warm-yel­low landscape. 

Adven­ture and Vulnerability

This is not a land­scape you mere­ly vis­it, but one you plan to trav­el into, and when there, you feel like you have left every­thing, and very often, every­one behind. It takes time to dri­ve the miles of tracks, and whilst you are trav­el­ling, you are expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent every kilo­me­tre of your jour­ney. Adven­ture is the best way to describe vis­it­ing the High­lands of Ice­land. As with any adven­ture, there is a tinge of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, which instils excite­ment. Regard­less of what­ev­er an array of weath­er reports may claim, you are sel­dom con­vinced of what the con­di­tions will be, but always assured that they will not remain sta­t­ic and benign.

Alone with the Landscape

The vast­ness of the place and the absence of peo­ple leave only one com­pan­ion: your sur­round­ings. It feels unfa­mil­iar, but you are unde­ni­ably con­scious of its bound­less beau­ty and awestruck by the pow­ers of nature. With all this con­sid­ered, it’s time to reach for your cam­era and endeav­our to com­mu­ni­cate this with a photograph.

This arti­cle first appeared in Issue 6 of the aspect2i pho­tog­ra­phy jour­nal ​‘Expres­sions’. To down­load the full issue, click here