{"id":4632,"date":"2012-09-03T09:01:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T13:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=4632"},"modified":"2018-08-03T21:34:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T01:34:30","slug":"sunday-sept-2-2012-skalafell-and-havlfjordur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=4632","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, Sept 2, 2012 \u2014 Sk\u00e1lafell and Hvalfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

After the con\u00adstant rain of the last few days, it was won\u00adder\u00adful to be out in the bright sun\u00adlight, so I thought some hik\u00ading would be in order. I walked through the qui\u00adet val\u00adley of Sk\u00e1lafell, a place of no par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar impor\u00adtance from a touris\u00adtic point of view. The val\u00adley, tend\u00ading north\u00adwest by south\u00adeast, is defined by high plateaux on either side. Even this ear\u00adly in the year, there are some patch\u00ades of fresh snow on top. The slopes curve down in almost per\u00adfect arcs. The bot\u00adtom of the val\u00adley has some rich graz\u00ading land, and is dot\u00adted with sheep, cat\u00adtle, hors\u00ades and ducks, all ami\u00adably graz\u00ading togeth\u00ader. Ice\u00adlandic sheep, which are very fluffy and look like car\u00adtoon sheep, don\u2019t seem to flock as tight\u00adly as the breeds I\u2019m famil\u00adiar with. You see them alone, or in twos or threes, but sel\u00addom larg\u00ader groups. The Ice\u00adlandic hors\u00ades are very strong look\u00ading, with mus\u00adcu\u00adlar-look\u00ading shoul\u00adders. The ones I saw had a broad mix of coats. At this time of year, they don\u2019t have their shag\u00adgy win\u00adter coats, so they don\u2019t look strik\u00ading\u00adly dif\u00adfer\u00adent, oth\u00ader than being a bit small. I saw some of them graz\u00ading far up the slopes, where it was extreme\u00adly steep.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>

The fer\u00adtile val\u00adley at Sk\u00e1lafell<\/p><\/div>\n

I passed numer\u00adous gul\u00adleys, side val\u00adleys, and nar\u00adrow water\u00adfalls tum\u00adbling down the slopes. Off the road, the ground was some\u00adtimes hard going. Where there is soil, there is usu\u00adal\u00adly a tan\u00adgle of berry bush\u00ades, sax\u00adifrages and sedges, with inter\u00admit\u00adtent patch\u00ades of grassy pas\u00adture. Where rock pre\u00addom\u00adi\u00adnates, the going can be very tough, as the ground is lit\u00adtered with jagged boul\u00adders and cut up by con\u00adfus\u00ading creeks and patch\u00ades of bog. The boul\u00adders are every\u00adwhere \u2014 frag\u00adments that have been pushed around ran\u00addom\u00adly by glac\u00adi\u00aders over mil\u00adlions of years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Build\u00adings are few and far between, despite the fact that this is good agri\u00adcul\u00adtur\u00adal land by Ice\u00adlandic stan\u00addards. The val\u00adley ter\u00admi\u00adnates dra\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly at Hvalfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur (Whale Fjord). <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Approach\u00ading Hvalfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur<\/p><\/div>\n

I got a ride going west along the fjord, around Mount Esja, and back into Reyk\u00adjavik. The dri\u00adver was a retired sheet-met\u00adal work\u00ader, who had owned a small fac\u00adto\u00adry that processed raw met\u00adal from Bel\u00adgium into sid\u00ading and roof\u00ading. He had sold it for his retire\u00adment short\u00adly before the Crash, so he and his wife, a retired ele\u00admen\u00adtary school teacher from a fish\u00ading vil\u00adlage in the north, were doing fine. But the fac\u00adto\u00adry has since gone into receiver\u00adship and shut down, toss\u00ading its employ\u00adees out of work. How many hon\u00adest enter\u00adpris\u00ades like that must have per\u00adished in the melt-down, engi\u00adneered by Con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive crooks and ide\u00ado\u00adlogues? These were not the con-artists lolling about in the chic restau\u00adrants of Reyk\u00adjavik, and rent\u00ading mil\u00adlion-dol\u00adlar apart\u00adments in Man\u00adhat\u00adtan or Paris. They were hard-work\u00ading, prac\u00adti\u00adcal peo\u00adple doing use\u00adful work before Every\u00adthing Fell Apart. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the con\u00adstant rain of the last few days, it was won\u00adder\u00adful to be out in the bright sun\u00adlight, so I thought some hik\u00ading would be in order. I walked through the qui\u00adet val\u00adley of Sk\u00e1lafell, a place of no particular \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,932],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ao-blog-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4632"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4788,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions\/4788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}