An Ísland of Adjectives and 'The British Fell Relays'

An Ísland of Adjectives

A chance encounter --- facilitated by lack of enthusiasm to pick up two smelly hikers dancing to the Beach Boys at the side of the road (but that’s another story) --- at a restaurant1 in a tiny village in the alps led to KW and I to consider a trip to Iceland. An american couple we dined with had just used the ‘free stopover’ service offered by Icelandair on transatlantic flights2 and waxed lyrical about the place.

It seemed that everyone we spoke to had been to Iceland --- who knew?! --- and we quickly noticed a pattern:

‘Iceland is a beautiful, challenging place’

‘Iceland is an interesting place’

‘Iceland is beautiful and intriguing’

‘Iceland is a shit and boring place’3

‘Iceland is…’

Iceland is an adjective-inducing place.

Almost three months from that first encounter, we arrived --- twelve hours apart due to classic am/pm mix-up --- ready to find out for ourselves. This report is our small contribution to the country’s descriptors.

The windswept look in this photograph is 100% manufactured.

The weather forecast for our week was simply horrendous --- locals claimed that Hurricane Matt had something to do with it, but we aren’t convinced. But, all things considered, we managed to make the most of our mostly soggy sojourn. Without going into excruciating detail, we’ve compiled a brief list of Do and Don't Icelandic experiences and a fun game of guess who was responsible for what idiotic act.  

Do’s:

• All the saunas/hot springs/thermal baths/pools. (Except Blue Lagoon which everyone told us is shitty and crowded.) We recommend: Laugarvatn Fontana, particularly if you get mistaken for tour group members and get in for free, Grindavik swimming pool, and Selfoss swimming pool. You get hot, then you get cold. Repeat. Adjective: Invigorating.
• Westmann Islands. Well and truly worth the 3 hour or 30 minute ferry from the south coast (weather dependant source port), The main island’s north side has 4 hills for the conquering (some volcanic, one still hot, one with ladders and cool sheep). The south side of the island is the self-proclaimed windiest point in Europe and the town includes what may be The Cutest Spectacle On Earth in September. If you go, we know someone (known locally as The Puffin Lady) who can host you for free. Adjective: Magical.

Blue skies and wooly sheep

Teeny tiny house on the cliffs

Every evening, a man lights candles on ladder+sheep mountain.

• Eat all the Icelandic bread you can: preferably with Pear and Fig Jam. Adjective: Tasty.

And don't forget to leave space for the cinnamon swirl pastries

• Car camp. As in literally camp in your car. If you rent a 4x4 (which you probably will), you're going to want to get as much bang as possible from that buck. Even with only one sleeping pad between two people, it's surprisingly cosy, even on the stormiest of nights. Important note: if you park in Thingvellir, you may receive a wake up call in the form of a threat to be bulldozed by local law enforcement. Adjective: Resourcefulness-Inducing
• Running (for a bit) on lava fields along the continental divide (or anywhere, really). You can almost enter a trance state, engulfed by whipping winds and rains, bounding over seemingly infinite lumpy moss, which springs under foot one step and threatens to snap an ankle the next. Adjective: Weird.
• Cook a meal for yourself in a farm stay, preferably one that includes a hot tub. Discover that the cost of one potato and one sweet potato is greater than almost an entire fish from the local Físka. Best enjoyed with a creepy bottle of wine. Adjective: Contradictory.

It was as dillicious as it looks

Creepy wine man, tell me what you are thinking...

Don’ts:

• Tour the Geothermal Bakery at Laugarvatn. The bread samples are delicious but you could easily swipe a few slices from the table and skip the “experience” -- a $15 10 minute walk behind a sullen teenager with a shovel to a hole in the sand with a pot buried in it. Complete with a busload of photo-takers who form a cloistered queue around the samples at the end. Adjective: Awkward.
• Sulphur hill (AKA Krisuvik). Unless you're into walking along roped paths with other waterproofed Guidebook-readers, through random blasts of sulphur fumes, to a “peak”/lump with five feet of visibility, you're safe to skip this spot. Adjective: Smelly.

Our verdict: Iceland is an Invigorating, Magical, Weird, Contradictory, Awkward, Smelly, Tasty, Resourcefulness-Inducing place.

And just for fun, here's a game of Who Done It (Answers below4):

1. Suggested poaching an egg in thermal boiling water
2. Puked on the ferry. And in a car park just as a tour bus emptied its parade of passengers.
3. Took the car on a 45 minute detour, while using Google Maps
4. Balls turned to raisins in the cold plunge pool.
5. Saw the Northern Lights.
6. Almost let 46,000 Icelandic Krona fly onto the highway in the “Let's See Who Can Handle Having The Windows Down” game
7. Attempted to downclimb a waterfall for the sake of an aesthetic ‘loop’ run rather than out’n’back while waiting on their better half
8. Had the best Michael Jackson smooth criminal lean?

British Fell Relays

The other part of our trip that might be of interest to WCAC members was one of --- in Iain’s opinion --- the highlights in the British ‘Fell5 Running’ scene: the Fell Relays (http://bfhrrc2016.westerlandsccc.co.uk/). The event, which moves to a different area of mountainous countryside of the UK every year, is a relay involving four legs and six runners. All the legs start and finish at a central event hub (rather than forming a continuous circuit like many in the US). This makes for some good spectating as you can see how the positions shift as the race progresses.

Roughly speaking the legs are as follows:

1. A short trail running leg that the winning runner should take ~30 minutes;
2. A longer fell run with pairs of runners (who have to stick together) taking around 75mins for the fastest pair;
3. A long navigation leg --- orienteering --- where a pair of runners get a map as they start and have to make their way from point to point as quickly as possible;
4. A shorter fell run involving the final runner; usually straight up and down a mountain.

More difficult the the race itself packing a small car with a carpet, 5 runners and a dog...

I was --- perhaps surprisingly for some WCAC members --- on the navigation leg for the men’s team of my old club, Carnethy. The fear-mongering that it was the trickiest course, both in terms of 'terrain' (bushwhacking factor) and navigational complexity in years was exaggerated, though the fact that 'clag' (cloud) was down to 300m meant that most of our run was at 10m visibility with eyes glued to compasses at all times, making avoiding all the 'tussocks' trickier than it would normally be. For anyone interested, here is the map that we were given on the startline:

Hit all the checkpoints (1-7) in order. What routes would you take? Answers on an email...

The dishevelled look was 90% authentic.

KW was on the prestigious Leg 2 in her first Scottish Fell race! In her words…

Some people like running. Some people like hills. Some people like both, but when push comes to shove, everyone's got a preference. The Brits love their hills by God, be that they have to finger claw up and butt sled down in gale force winds through knee deep mud.  I'm the former (the type who, when alone on a mountain, would forego a rocky summit in favour of a runnable trail), but I can enjoy a bonnie romp in the fells on occasion.

The going is tough and thrilling and “knackering” (British for soul-crushing), but the atmosphere is what makes the day. Marshals stand on fog blanketed hilltops all day, cheering on and handing out jelly sweets. Runners exchange encouragements and cheeky banter on the course. Afterwards, everyone shares detailed (Crime Report-level) descriptions of every inch of their route and every moment of their race drama over cups of tea and stovies (yummy Scottish stew), then dances the night away at a Ceilidh.

I don’t know if such an event could ever be run in some hills in California, but I’d encourage anyone who happens to be over in Scotland to give a hill race a try… :-)

Footnotes

1. Spoiler alert: unlike Iceland in October, the restaurant, Ptarmigan in Champex (one of my favourite birds, a reminder of the Cairngorms in Scotland), could not be more highly recommended. If you are nearby, GO!

2. To my dismay, Icelandair do not fly from SFO, but they do from Portland, FDK!

3. This was, in fact, the summary of a couple of local students that we chatted to in Reykjavik.

4. Katie, Iain, Katie, Katie. But Iain looked really cold too,No one. Ever,Iain,Iain, (see below)

5. The british term for running on rough, soggy mountains.