Day 18 Sunday May 29, 2016

Yesterday was our last field day to hike. We took a ferry over to Vestmannaeyjar Island for a packed day of hiking. The ferry ride over was short, and  started off the day with the treacherous hike up Heimklettur Cliff. The strong smell of fish lingered in the air, but as we hiked higher and higher it was replaced by the smell of sheep poop. Steep slopes, wooden ladders, stairs, and narrow sheep trail made up our path to the top. The climb upwards was slow and steady for good reason. The view as we climbed just got better. At the grassy top we saw a 360 degrees view of the island, small islands, ocean, Iceland, and the Eldfell volcano which erupted in 1973. We had a picnic on top while Dr. Ranson gave a short lecture about the volcanoes history. After the slow decent down, we made a pit stop at a gas station for a celebratory snack. Dr. Suresh got an entire bag filled with French fries, so we had a fries break every few feet on our way to the volcano. Such Americans:)

Eldfell loomed in front of us, and we started our vertical climb to the top. The climb had less obstacles  than the cliff, so we arrived at the to in pretty good time. The volcanic rocks were a variety of colors, but the orange/red ones were my favorite. I took off my gloves and put my hand in some sand. Heat. My hands grew warm and then got hot. Wow! I wandered over to some rock formations where I found a whole with heat waves coming out of it. The volcano is hot hot hot! We sat by the various vents keeping warm. Dr. Suresh even  geothermal lay heated up the french fries! We then headed to the Eldheimar Museum which was built over an excavated house buried by black pumice from the volcanic eruption. The audio tour was eye opening, and revealed the horrors of such a destructive eruption. However, Icelanders are resilient, and fought for their town. 417 houses burned, but everyone was evacuated either by fishing boats or helicopter. The eruption lasts 5 months, and is considered "the Pompeii of the North." During the clean up process, one man died from falling asleep when toxic fumes were still prevalent. The island grew 20 percent in size, which Dr. Ranson got to see he island before (1968) the eruption and now. I think it is amazing that a few thousands of people made it off the island because fishing boats were in the harbor since there had been a bad storm earlier. The reality that we were literally on an island with a volcano set in. Despite the danger, 2/3 of the people moved back, and dug their town out of pumice. They live in beautiful homes right next to a volcano. Wow. We ate dinner at Gott in the town which was a great end to a great day. This was the perfect way to end the exploration of nature in Iceland. Onward to Reykjavik for one last day.

Hike up Heimklettur Cliff

View from the top: Eldfell Volcano on the right

Chilling (more like heating up) on top of Eldfell Volcano