is a new gallery that I just created that includes a collection of images taken in early April 2022 when I was guiding for Apex Expeditions. Navigate to the main menu, select Gallery and enjoy.
The stair-stepped golden falls of Gullfoss with a vibrant rainbow in the rising spray.
of Iceland was achieved by our group with Apex Expeditions the last two weeks, our travel trajectory across the country plotted on the map below.
GPS track of our counter-clockwise journey around Iceland from my Garmin Fenix 6X Pro watch. It records waypoints every few hours when in “expedition mode.” (Click on image to embiggenate.)
stands in isolation at Búðir on the storm-beaten southern coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, painted and sealed with pitch to withstand the harsh elements.
Snæfellsjökull is the dominant stratovolcano at the western tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula, rising to 1,446 meters (4,744 feet), and the fabled entrance to the center of the Earth according to Jules Verne.
View of glacier-capped Snæfellsjökull from the air on my return flight from Iceland.
are small but long-lived and hardy working animals.
in Iceland, standing 463 meters (1,520 feet) high on the north coast of Iceland's Snæfellsnes peninsula.
Sunset over Kirkjufell on our last night in Iceland.
dominate northwestern Iceland as seen in the three panoramas below.
View across Miklavatn valley. (Click on image to enlarge.)
The morning view from our hotel in Siglufjörður. (Click on image to enlarge.)
Cirques above Siglufjörður. (Click on image to enlarge.)
and the undisputed herring capital of the north Atlantic during the 1900s.
Siglufjörður today.
Siglufjörður in 1938. (Image from a photo in the herring museum.)
Interior of the highly interesting herring museum.
Deeply glaciated landscape at Héðinsfjörður, looking south into the highlands. (Click image to enlarge.)
on the shore of Skjálfandi bay and has become a center of whale watching in northern Iceland due to whales of different species that frequently enter the bay.
Click on image to enlarge.
is extraordinarily impressive and is about 100 meters (330 feet) wide and has a drop of 44 meters (144 feet). Located in Jökulsá á Fjöllum, a large canyon cut by several volcanically-generated outburst floods — jökulhlaups — during the middle Holocene.
Dettifoss on a snowy spring day. (Click image to enlarge.)
contributes approximately 30 percent of Iceland’s electricity, the other 70 percent coming from hydropower. This is the Krafla facility, rated at 60 megawatts.
One wonderful benefit of a nearby power plant are the hot pools for soaking. Our group spent two hours relaxing here in the therapeutic waters.
at Námafjall Hverir were exceptionally dramatic this morning, given the cold temperatures and recent snowfall.
Click on image to enlarge.
at Skutustadir, on the south shore of Lake Myvatn in northern Iceland, are the result of steam explosions beneath a lava flow. Geologists use the term “rootless cones” to describe these unique volcanic landforms.
in northern Iceland drops from a height of 12 meters (39 feet) across a width of 30 meters (98 feet).
across the Vatnajökull ice cap was largely obscured by clouds today, but here are a couple of shots from the air.
Our charter aircraft, a Dornier 328 turboprop.
Braided outwash channels near Höfn, Iceland.
Glacially carved valleys south of Akureyri, Iceland.
was loads of fun this afternoon!
The adventurous members of Apex Expedition’s snowmobile team. (Click on image to enlarge.)
out for a paddle this morning.
Common Eider (Somateria mollissima): Three adult males, two adult females and one juvenile male.
belonging to the greater Breiðamerkursandur glacial plain, located near the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. Large chunks of glacial ice that have calved from the glacier front are worked and polished by the heavy surf into lovely shapes and colors.
was the location of a glacier hike today, where we strapped on crampons and climbed high into the ice. Nice!
Apex Expeditions co-leader Kevin Clement.
gushed from the subglacial lake Grímsvötn in Vatnajökull, Iceland. In November 1996 a surge of floodwater from beneath the Skeidarárjökull glacier inundated the Skeidarársandur outwash plain seen here, destroying a large segment of the Ring Road on the southern coast.
is the biggest lava flow in the world, created by the eruption of Laki volcano in 1783-84. The enormous basaltic lava flow covers 565 square kilometers (218 square miles) yet it averages only 12 meters (40 feet) in thickness. It is covered with a soft and vibrant arctic hair moss as shown in the image below.
