Before our Monday evening climb we had a few hours to walk around the campsite and the neighboring terrain. The camp is sat just beside a lava field, with a path through it to a flat plateau on the other side. Me and a few other guys took a short walk through the fields just to see what's on the other side (As I've said, try to stop a landscape photographer ;) ).
Photographing a lava field is very tricky. Unsurprisingly, the lava stone are piled up for meters, often without any semblance of structure. Basically, it's utter chaos, where photographers try to find patterns or lines. I've found that lava is best used as a small foreground element, to convey the alien nature of a place. Even then, finding a good composition is hard.
Chaos, chaos everywhere.
This one I like. You can see a fellow photog setting up his tripod in the bottom right :)
Smooth hills and rugged lava. What's not to like? :)
At this point the clouds had basically covered the sky. We learned the reason for this when we got back to the camp; a storm was heading our way. A big storm. Thor, our guide, said that there is no point in trying to find another location, since the storm would cover almost all of Iceland. Well then.
We would still have some time before the storm hit in the morning, so we decided to go up the hill anyway for sunset, the views from there didn't necessarily need sunlight to be good. We'd watch the weather, and stay as long as we could, hopefully until sunrise. So, warm clothes in the backpack and all the camera gear we could carry, up the hill we went.
We started by following a riverbank that runs beside the camp, and then started up the smaller of the two hills.
Riverbed photographed from ground level.
The first section was very steep. And made up of sand. Mr Heaton himself taking the lead, the half-mountain goat that he is :)
We paused on the top of the smaller hill, about two thirds of the way up. The views were nice from here already, so we took the advantage of taking some shots. Instead of the big view which I knew would be better from the top, I concentrated on the small details of the nearby hills.
Still a ways to go...
So, what was the view like? Breathtaking.
Predictably, we didn't get a sunset. As the storm crept closer, we also had to abandon the idea of staying until sunrise. After a good hour of taking panoramics every which way, Thor decided we needed to start heading down. As we descended, I took this image with my phone:
The low clouds are definitely moving closer...
Before we went to sleep, we still tried to find some photographs by driving around the area. The mist/rain that was rolling over the hills produced some nice compositions, even though the light was already mostly gone.
Timestamped 00:35
As we headed back, Thor told us the plan; wake up early, take down the tents, take down the camper, and hope nothing breaks in the wind while we are away (the kayaks, for instance. We forgot to tie those down...). We were looking at a day sitting in the van, because that was the sturdiest thing we had. The forecast was 20-25 m/s winds with heavy rain for the whole day. Not great for photography, but we would still try. The whole camp site was battering the hatches; hikers were forbidden to go out into the wilderness for the next two days. After a night of basically no sleep, we took everything down as we were told, and headed out with the van.
Sheep don't give a damn.
Our first stop was on the side of the road you can see above. The storm was there in full force; unfortunately I failed to snap shots of people leaning against the wind while trying to get photos hand-held. Tripods would not have stayed put.
This is a photo of missed opportunity; I had the wrong lens on. Tom (and others) got a great image here with a wider shot that showed the full S-curve of the stream leading to the sheep and hills. Instead of changing lenses, I covered in the van. Lesson learned.
The rain and wind kept on pummeling us as we slowly drove further into the highlands. As long as we stayed in the van, we were (relatively) comfy. Thor knew of a great new-ish hill formation that he was taking us to. As we saw it, we got immediately excited. Little did we know we'd be cursing that mountain in a few hours time...
Our first glimpse of what we would affectionally come to call Mordor.
We drove down into the valley to get a better angle on the hill. The storm kept getting worse. As you can see, there is basically no cover anywhere from the wind or rain. Setting up a tripod was close to impossible. Thor did his best and tried to find a good vantage point, but the only one we actually could stay in for a while wasn't the best (it was on the left side in the picture above, and the profile of the hill was decidedly worse from there). I took some images, but honestly, they are crap.
What happened afterwards was more interesting though. I said earlier we drove down into the valley. Guess what happened when we tried to get back up?
Tom films while Thor tries his luck for the third or fourth time. The missing hubcap was safely caught in an earlier incident and is inside the car :)
Despite being raised, having big tires, and being four-wheel drive, the van was stuck. Thor tried multiple times to get up the hill we came down, but no luck; the van simply lost contact to the ground with two wheels and had no traction. We couldn't get back up.
Of course, that wasn't the only road out of the valley. In fact, there were three other ones. One, Thor didn't know if it led out of the valley or into the nearby mountains, so that one was out of question. Another Thor knew was too tough for his van, so that wasn't an option either. Only one to try, then.
I know now, looking back, I should've taken pictures. But the weather was shit, we were stuck, and honestly, a bit nervous. We went down the small, bumpy road, swerving between lava outcroppings, until we hit something. Well, first we hit the ground slightly, and after that we hit a patch of snow. There were two options; a very tight bend in the road around the snow, or over it. Then van couldn't make the turn because it was too long and too low. And the snow wasn't any better; it was frozen on top, with no indication how deep it was. And without proper tires, Thor didn't want to risk it. So, we turned around and tried the second option, the one which Thor knew was tough. It was. Too tough. We had to turn back again.
Got thread?
At this point, we had driven past Mordor four times. All the roads we had tried had been blocked. Tom even managed to bend the door of Thors van, when he opened it and didn't think of the wind; the gale ripped the door out of Toms hand, and slammed it forward, bending the mount. Thor even tried the first hill again, even more aggressively this time, to no avail. We were still stuck in the Valley of Mordor.
Taken through the van window, I did not want to get out into the storm.
Then, our luck changed. On the top of the hill, two proper off-road cars appeared. They came down the hill, and Thor stopped them to get some help. The drivers were not very familiar with the territory, but they offered to help with the snow; their better cars could forge a path for us if the snow was too deep. With no other options, we set out again. Past Mordor for the fifth and last time.
The ice on top of the van held; we got through. After the snow patch there were still a few close calls where we had to get out and call out clearances for Thor as he navigated the lava rocks beside and on the road. But we made it. It took almost an hour to get out, but we did. Thor actually took a wrong turn at one point, landing us at the side of a caldera. The storm was still in full swing, so we decided to move on. Finally, we reached a big road. Looking back, there was a road sign that I took a picture of while Thor was re-filling the tires.