Ah, Glymur. Like my other favorite hikes of all time, we might as well have disregarded all the online descriptions of this hike. They suggested that it would be moderate in both length and difficulty, clocking in at around 3 hours. We picked it because it would be perfect timing for us to make our flight home to SFO later that day, and start at a leisurely pace in the morning. Starting a theme for the rest of the day, we arrived with what we thought was just enough time to finish the hike before heading back to the airport.

We were met instead by frothing whitewater tumbling over rocks that formed a path across only half of the river. Instead of the log that’s usually there, a single thick metal wire was the sole conduit by which we could cross. I rolled up my pant legs and tried to wade through and check whether the river was shallow enough. But I couldn’t reach all the way down without getting soaked, and possibly swept away by the icy current. Before the river drained the feeling from my legs, I shook my head at my friends, and we headed off to try to find a way up the canyon’s slope. However, we quickly lost faith in the clods of dirt that we shook loose from the hillside. Slipping and falling would be just as dangerous, so we decided to take one last look at the river. This time it was Jared who took the plunge, stripping to his boxers and reaching for the bottom of the river from the rope. Miraculously, it was just a couple inches shy of our waists, and we all charged across after him. The bone chilling current felt like it was sweeping my soul away, but I was ready for enlightenment.

Our only reprieve by this point was that the sun was out in full force, and it’s powerful evaporating rays had us dry in no time. That quick turnaround time would be vital to climb the path that shot up the side of the ravine. It was steep in places with loose soil, and it was cold enough that some parts were still icy as well. Fortunately, there were thick metal cables bolted into the ground here as well. We hung on tightly to the cables so that if we were to lose our footing, our hand grips would keep us from falling off and we could steady ourselves again. As we continued upwards, there were a few smaller waterfalls we passed that had been frozen solid. We were glad to see them in their icy stillness before they melted for the summer as well.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long until we reached our true goal, a full frontal with the Glymur waterfall itself. It’s the tallest accessible waterfall in all of Iceland, and it still had quite a healthy flow despite a few parts still being iced over. Most of the water when we visited was pouring down the right side of the falls, with a combination of trickles and frozen ice on the left. It’s definitely a breathtaking site, and like Bjarnafoss the previous day, we were so thankful to have visited while there was so much ice left that creates this beautiful contrast between the static and temporal.

However, it was here that we also learned that we didn’t all have the same idea about how we’d get back down. The rest of us turned back toward the way we came, to see that Jared had turned towards the river, upstream of where it tumbled over the falls. “We can actually get back this way”, he said. We looked at the river together. It did look more tranquil here above the falls, but there was still no telling how deep it was, whether there was a path across, and there was no wire in sight to stabilize us during a crossing. Furthermore, there was no path that we could see on the other side of the river that led back to the parking lot. The slope looked more gentle than the way we came, but it wasn’t clear to us that there wouldn’t be something like a cliff on the way that would stop us cold. Because of that, the rest of us shook our heads and motioned to go back the way we came. But Jared was pretty adamant about this path working, insisting that the hike is actually a loop. There was the additional risk, though, that even if the other route was traversable, that it would still get us back to the parking lot too late to make our flight home. And none of us were in the financial position to pay for a last-minute flight back that would be hundreds of dollars. We insisted on going back on the established path, and after one last burst of resistance from Jared we offered to split ways, but with the stipulation that we’d leave after a certain time if he wasn’t back yet. Unwilling to be stranded in the middle of nowhere in this desolate country, he let up and we all breathed a sigh of relief on the way down.

Of course, this meant that we had to cross the freezing river on the way down again. We knew that we could hold onto the wire and that the river’s bottom was shallow enough to ford if we stripped to our boxers. However, this time Jared and Joel had another idea. Rather than forgo their clothing, they put their hands on the wire and shimmied across, one at a time. Because it was a thick metal cord, it was sure to hold their weight. But one slip up, a loss of balance, or even sheer exhaustion would send them plummeting into the river’s icy current. I watched them with trepidation, but in the end they both made it through just fine. Ben on the other hand, had a more clever idea. He flipped himself upside down, crossed his legs over the wire, and pulled himself over with both hands. This worked wonderfully at first, and he moved much faster than either Jared or Joel. However, towards the end the rope inches closer to the water’s edge, and his hood fell off his head and into the frigid stream. Fortunately for him though, that was the only part of him to get soaked. That left me, with all my stuff and also Ben’s camera, since he didn’t want to risk it on his journey across. I did the tried and true method of fording the river, the one that was least likely to result in me dropping the precious camera or getting swept away myself. After a bit more time for me to drive off, we scurried along the last bit and back to the car. 

When we got back to the trailhead, we had to take a few minutes to all untie our boots and get settled for the drive back to the airport. And after I got my boots off, I saw a billboard with a map at the start of the trailhead. And to my horror, the route that it depicted actually showed it going further up towards the snowy mountain, before doing a wide loop and crossing the river again at a lower point. The map read that we’d only done about a quarter of the full loop, and that there was definitely no trail on the other side of the river. I called Joel and Ben over, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, when we turned around to tell Jared about our findings, what should we see, but his greedy l’il paws tucked comfortably into a recently opened package of double stuffed Oreos! We had each brought some snacks to Iceland for sharing, and thought we had run out the previous day. But the scene that unfolded in front of us obviously read otherwise. We gave him one look, and he said “All right, these are for everyone too”. We demolished the bag almost on the spot, but the exhaustion of a well done hiking trail will do that to you. Thankfully, the rest of the drive back to the airport was uneventful, and the flight was as well. And yes, this time we filled up our water bottles well ahead of boarding our WOW Air flight so we wouldn’t get charged.