Travels: Jökulsá í Lóni July 7

Jökulsá í Lóni July 7

We awoke early at Smiðjunes, already packed for a long day of adventure. After breakfast we set off right from the campground up the orange drainage that seemed to have a fresh layer of debris. After a while a stream trickled above the debris and after 700m up this drainage we ran into a tricky sloping 4m waterfall, slippery enough that I took Heather's pack and spotted her up it. Fortunately no more obstacles appeared and we were on the 4X4 track heading up valley.

From the track we had nice views looking across Jökulsá í Lóni to the colorful volcanics opposite, and upvalley where there were plenty of snowy peaks. The river looked to be incredibly braided, which made me nervous that it could be slow and hard to navigate. I envisioned a worst case scenario of being led by the river away from our takeout and/or channels separating until we ended up with too little water to float and have to walk across the river flats.

The 4WD track continued over some hills back down to river level. We had to cross a few tributary drainages including one I invested 5 minutes of rock placement to make stepping stones to jump across. The largest tributary had a really unique bridge; it was on wheels so it could be towed and placed as needed and had a high arch like an ancient Japanese water garden. At about this point is where the 4WD track stopped and instead we had a staked hiking trail to follow. At a distance of 7 km we reached the sizable suspension bridge over Lóni where we stopped for a snack. Downstream of this point was wide braided river flats, definitely mild Class II, upstream the river moved fast in a Class II+ section.

As we crossed the bridge and climbed up the hill opposite, we got progressively more spectacular views of the river and the dramatic end of the gorge upstream. We continued to gain elevation, passing several trail junctions branching off to the west. Progress was steady but we still felt like we had lots of ground to cover. We had impeccable blue skies above and upvalley. Looking back we could see the coast was completely socked in with drizzly clouds; I kept a watchful eye hoping it would not progress inland towards us, knowing the trip would feel a lot more epic if we were cold and wet. As it turned out the clouds held their position all day and we felt like we were exactly where we wanted to be.

Looking back towards the socked in coast

Along the way we had the occasional mom sheep and lamb that we would catch off guard, darting off out of sight. We reached a few meadowy benches where we made good progress for a while. Then rather unexpectedly the trail nearly disappeared crossing an active angle-of-repose scree slope. This was the first of several places where if it was not for the marked stakes I might have thought we strayed onto a sheep trail. This first scree traverse was arguably the scariest; loose rock, 5m of slope below us, then a vertical 100m cliff that we did not want to see the bottom of. Progress slowed as caution reigned.

We traversed into and out of a hanging alluvial valley (more sheep), then out to a minor saddle before more scree slopes. Interestingly there were coarsely crystalline granitic rocks here, which I was not expecting to see in Iceland. Just below the saddle I sent the drone up to scout the river, despite borderline windy conditions that made me a little nervous. The scenery was some of the most dramatic and wild we saw in all of Iceland. We really felt like we were starting to get to the middle of nowhere. All the river I could see looked very reasonable, Class III at most as I suspected. It did look fast with few eddies though.

The day was getting on but we still had several slow kilometers to go. At least we did not have to worry about darkness, only our exhaustion levels, I thought. We had more giant scree slopes to traverse, then to go down, then to go up. Every time we thought we were done there would be more. The scree was mentally destroying Heather. I was fine with it but will admit I was thoroughly impressed how rough, and frankly sketchy, the trail was for being a marked route. This could not have been too popular a route.

Down and up, down and up, the trail continued to cut across the grain of the landscape with determination. It took us well over an hour to go the 3km from the drone stop to the final scree slope before a nice long meadowy section. Finally the trail eased and we could focus on the beautiful surroundings. A minor drainage down to our right gave a great window down to the confluence of the glacial grey Lóni and its deep blue tributary mid-gorge. Giant multi-colored scree slopes descended out of sight to the river below. The scale of everything, especially the gorge of the Lóni over a 1000m below us, was sobering and intimidating. This was a part of Iceland few got to see. Scenically it was right near the top.

We soon intersected the F road, and a short distance further its terminal parking lot, precariously situated in the crook of a spine. From our vantage it looked like there were cliffs all around; it was hard to conceive where or how a trail was going to be able to get us down, but we continued to follow the markings. The first view upvalley over the spine was spectacular. A glacier on the horizon, fast moving whitewater, a quaint hut, and a lot of downhill to the river!

Mulaskáli Hut at center, our put-in to lower right

The trail continued loose, narrow, and exposed along the spine, then switchbacked steeply. A couple places have rope bolted to the rock, which did very little to help the situation. These final couple hundred meters of elevation took us quite a long time. A little after 4pm we were finally down the hill and at the river's edge.

Spectacular!

We had a long rest, snack, and regrouping at the shore of the Lóni. Heather was tired. We just spent close to 8 hours hiking 21km and felt like we were deep in the Icelandic wilderness (though admittedly there was a hut only 1.5km away along a trail). It was late in the day (but we did not have to worry about being benighted). Heather was intimidated by the fast flowing river but agreed that the river would be much more preferable than retracing our steps. We discussed our plans. I was not worried about the whitewater so much as one of us making a silly mistake and losing our boat miles down an eddyless river. As partial insurance I ended up tethering myself to my boat. With no further reason to delay we pushed off at about 5pm.

The river moved exceptionally fast. Though there were some some holes, a smooth path through wave trains was always possible. There were a number of tight bends in the river where a rapid while pile up on the outside and Heather got plenty of practice lining up for an inside path. We stopped several times at microeddies for Heather to catch her breath. The gradient and rapids generally eased the further we went, while the canyon walls grew to a grand canyon scale. The first 2.5km to the blue tributary went lightning fast and we both were greatly relieved to be finished with hiking. The scenery through the gorge was fantastic, every turn revealed new interesting volcanics, just unfortunately a little too nonstop for me to take great pictures. We stopped to scout a long rapid due to a debris chute just below the wide amphitheater below where I flew the drone. Soon we exited the gateway bottom of the gorge with a further 3km of wider valley to the suspension bridge.

We past under the bridge. Heather breathed a sigh of relief at being done with the whitewater but I was still nervous about the 7km of braided river still to go. I made a couple wrong decisions initially that resulted in some bottom scraping but nothing that we had to get out of our boats for. Once I learned to go with the flow rather than trying to force a more river left route, the river treated us well and was usually deep enough to avoid scrapes. The cloudless skies continued as we floated down this wide expanse.

We made it to our takeout spot without any drama, floating 18.5km in less than 2.5 hours (7:30pm). Overall we both really enjoyed our Jökulsá í Lóni adventure and I thought it made a stellar packraft trip. It is one thing to scout a trip with pixelated aerial photos; this was a classic example where all that planning really did not prepare me for the scale or raw beauty of the landscape. Though you can never be completely sure, I think our 18.5 km Class II-III paddle was probably a first descent. There would be at least an additional 10km of stouter Class III-IV above our put-in and I can imagine this making a fantastic overnight hut trip.

I ran up to bring our vehicle down to the water's edge to dry gear a little in the low light while we made dehydrated meals. There was certainly a temptation to have a second night right here at Smiðjunes but once we were fed there was an even stronger temptation to drive about an hour to soak in Djúpavogskorin Hot Pool and then camp in the nearby seaside town of Djúpivogur. We drove back to the Ring Road where we promptly entered thick drizzly fog as it had been all day long. We were so thankful for our clear blue weather! We past a foggy lagoon with a mind numbing amount of geese lining the shores. The roadside Djúpavogskorin Hot Pool was a little on the hot side but a welcome reward for a long day's adventure; I'm sure it had an interesting view but being enveloped in the fog had its own charm. We could say with confidence that we were not tourists this day. On to the campground for some well deserved sleep.

Jökulsá í Lóni July 7

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