North of the Wall

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

The Golden Circle is not actually a circle, and it’s not actually golden.  It’s probably the worst nickname in the world come to think of it.  It’s more of a series of roads that lead to a few of Iceland’s most popular attractions.  There’s the original Geysir from which all other geysers in the world have been named, there’s Gulfoss which is one of the greatest waterfalls in the world, and then there’s Thingvellir National Park which is where you can see the North American plate separating from the Eurasian plate.  We saw all of them including a few other attractions along the way.

Kerid Crater

Our first stop was unplanned.  We pulled into a parking lot to take some pictures, have a snack, and maybe go to the bathroom.  There was a sign that said “Kerid” with an arrow.  Then I remembered the Kerid Crater from some of the research I had done and felt stupid that I’d forgotten about it.  We’d have missed it altogether if it wasn’t for how fast the red bull had gone through my system since the last gas station.  There’s not too much to say about the crater, only that it’s not from a meteorite but from a caved in magma chamber.  Basically the magma underneath the Earth was swelling the surface up into a bulge until it drained and the surface collapsed into a crater.  Very much like a sinkhole in the southern United States, except here it was magma and not water.  Anyways, it took us 20 minutes to walk around the rim and take pictures before we continued on.  When we had arrived the sun was breaking through the clouds and when we left it was a full on blizzard.  That’s Iceland in February.  We would get very used to it.

Geysir

The original “Geysir” is not very active anymore.  From what we were told, it used to go off regularly, kind of like Old Faithful in Yellowstone.  Now it goes off at random intervals that are hard to predict and pointless to wait for.  Its sister geyser is named “Sokkur” and she is more predictable.  Nowadays Stokkur goes off once or twice every ten minutes and steals the show.  We saw her go off at least ten times as we walked through the geothermal fields on our second stop of the Golden Circle.  Old Faithful is more impressive but Stokkur is more frequent.  I recommend it for the impatient geyser hunter.

Gulfoss

So we came to Gulfoss (meaning the Golden Waterfall).  I read somewhere that it’s debated as the greatest waterfall in the world.  I don’t know who has the time to debate a waterfall’s greatness compared to another’s but I will agree this one was great.  Unlike some other great waterfalls I’ve seen, this one has formed from a fracture in the Earth’s crust and its subsequent flooding.  There are a few different drop offs that lead down into a final canyon where the Olfusa river continues.  “Olfusa” is actually spelled with a bunch of dots above the O and slashes above the A, but I don’t have the motivation to find those characters on my computer.  Call me American.

Being winter, it was surrounded by sheets of snow and ice, giving it a dangerous but beautiful feel.  Every time I see a waterfall like Gulfoss I can’t help but wonder how painful it would be to kayak down it, and how scary.  Just the deafening sound of the rapids would be enough to give most people a heart attack.  The power of nature is unfathomable.  We had a nice British man with obvious photography skills take our picture above the falls and then we left over the icy walkways.

Thingvellir National Park

Last stop on the golden circle.  This is where you can actually see where North America is separating from Europe.  Having been a geology major in college this was like standing on holy ground.  The fissures that open up along the boundary are craggy and deep, some of which you can actually walk through.  Out of all the places that have looked like mars in Iceland this was the most marsy.  We got there as darkness approached and so there weren’t many people there besides us.  Looking out on all the nothingness that surrounds the national park was humbling especially in the dark blue light that blankets Iceland in winter.  We stayed for awhile after it became completely dark hunting for the Northern Lights, but as our luck would have it, clouds pushed in and it began to snow.  Again, we’d missed them.  The weather so far in Iceland has not cooperated one bit.  We’re beginning to think the country doesn’t like us being here.