Iceland Coast-to-Coast - January 2020 - Trip Report

The trip report has been written by Ben James, who also provided the best photos.

In my mind any expedition should involve a significant amount of suffering and struggle to make it the complete experience. When you accept that you tend to focus on those small moments of success or beauty a little more when they infrequently occur. It’s those bits I then remember the most post expedition, and inevitably the pain and strife becomes a distant memory. Those little moments of success or beauty can spur you on to your target, yet when they are that infrequent, or the physical pain outweighs anything poignant you find, it becomes a real battle to drive yourself through it. Iceland in the winter is the first time I have found that. It’s the first time I felt my positivity sapped from me, leaving me physically and mentally drained. It’s the only time I’ve let the thoughts of “what’s the point” creep through my mind. Yet there we were huddled in a tent sitting out our first big storm. Hoping that the setup we had would stand up to the 70 mph winds that were currently battering us as we lay huddled and exhausted in our small cocoon. Both fatigued and ill from a few days of sickness and diarrhoea that left us doubled up and hungry, too worried to eat our daily rations in fear of having to leave the safety of our tent to throw up in the midst of a storm. It was only day 8 and we had planned for three more weeks.

Regardless of that, through subsequent conversations we discovered we were like minded and both had a mutual acceptance of the fortitude required on an expedition. During the aftermath of the May crossing we got onto talking about the labours of a winter crossing. Having already heard horror stories of the conditions and a recent failed attempt by a team, it seemed a grim and ridiculous prospect. As with all ideas though you sow the seed and they grow. After a self-guided and unsupported Svalbard expedition in 2018 we were more at ease with cold climates and our routines. Our fitness was better and again the Iceland winter crossing reared its head. We still debate over who re-ignited the idea, I am adamant it was Neil whereas he is still holding me responsible.

What people don’t appreciate is the work behind the scenes that goes into planning an expedition of this size. Everyone marvels at the photos afterwards and are left dumb founded by the physicality of the trip, but behind the scenes planning and training can be just as taxing and sometimes more stressful. Logistically Iceland isn’t a difficult place to plan for as it has regular flights from the UK, and the ring road has made most of the country relatively accessible when the conditions allow. The biggest challenge was picking the right kit that we knew could survive a myriad of conditions. The Icelandic climate is the most changeable I have ever been in. You are quite likely to have to endure every element at its extreme in the space of a few hours, but the winters are long and harsh. The storms that batter Iceland are of biblical proportions to the point that all non-essential travel is advised against. We’d learnt from talking to previous members of winter attempts that nothing withstands the rain or wind. Goretex freezes and insulation fails. The search for reliable kit began.

Of course, how we would fuel ourselves was a massive consideration. A massive calorie output meant a lot of fuel, but how to keep it lightweight was always a quandary. Usually we keep to a strict budget for food, this time we didn’t set a weight allowance and just took what we felt we needed whilst keeping it as light as possible. It resulted in a daily menu of 4500 calories a day with a weight of 850 grams. That was pretty light for such high calories, mostly made up of two 1000 calorie freeze dried meals a day, provided by Expedition Foods, with various high calorie snacks in between. Even with the high calorie count it would not match what we knew we would burn. We debated over what foods we should bring. Neil preferred high calorie content through carbs and fat, whereas I preferred high protein. In the end which reached a compromise.

Of course, how we would fuel ourselves was a massive consideration. A massive calorie output meant a lot of fuel, but how to keep it lightweight was always a quandary. Usually we keep to a strict budget for food, this time we didn’t set a weight allowance and just took what we felt we needed whilst keeping it as light as possible. It resulted in a daily menu of 4500 calories a day with a weight of 850 grams. That was pretty light for such high calories, mostly made up of two 1000 calorie freeze dried meals a day, provided by Expedition Foods, with various high calorie snacks in between. Even with the high calorie count it would not match what we knew we would burn. We debated over what foods we should bring. Neil preferred high calorie content through carbs and fat, whereas I preferred high protein. In the end which reached a compromise.

In all we had 27 days-worth of food although we hoped to only need 3 weeks to complete the expedition. We estimated that in bad weather we may have had to spend a third of our time sitting in the tent so we need to plan for this eventuality too. We kept a few additional days contingency in case we had fell foul to injury or any other emergency. We knew that if we got into a situation where rescue was required then it was unlikely to arrive for days, as it would almost certainly occur in the worst weather conditions. Almost every eventuality was planned for and this was factored into the contingency time we allowed. In dire circumstances we could have dragged out the amount of food we had for several weeks more should the worse happen. Our total kit weight came out at 72kg each although this increased slightly as I added a few last minute items that I hadn’t accounted for. We had cut what we could and tried to keep it as light as possible. Neil had taken the weight saving so seriously that he actually ditched trousers from his kit and opted to just take his thermals, kayaking onesie and waterproof trousers only. For a while he was even debating just how necessary underwear was! I decided that both underwear and trousers would be a good idea and even took spare pairs of socks, giving me two sets in total for the 27 days.

I spent Christmas Eve again checking over the kit list before going to work and then enjoying what seemed like an all too brief Christmas day with my partner and my nearly two year old son. I went to Svalbard shortly after my son was born in 2018, but this would be the longest period of time I had left both of them in well over a year. I had put expeditions on hold post Svalbard to get used to fatherhood and instead stayed relatively local by taking part in ultra-marathon races instead. Iceland had always been on the cards though and my partner knew about and supported it throughout every stage.

On the 26th of December I crawled in from my last night shift at work, then on the 27th flew out to Iceland, jumping straight into our hire car and headed north on the ring road to Akureyri. We stumbled into our booked accommodation at about 3 in the morning. Already feeling pretty hammered, we got up, unpacked everything, divided up the kit between us and then drove the short distance our start point at Akureyri airport.

After a couple of years of planning here we were pointing towards the highlands with fully laden pulks balancing on our bespoke kayak wheels. I knew how hard this was going to be physically but felt I had prepared myself well, that was until I started trying to move. Immediately I couldn’t believe the difficulty I was having in moving my pulk. For the road sections we had ordered custom-made kayak trollies to save grinding out our heavy pulks on the tarmac and rough roads where there was no snow cover. As we walked for the first few hours Neil began to pull away from me already. I couldn’t understand why I was struggling so badly, each step was laboured and no matter how I adjusted my kit or harness, nothing relieved the pressure or agony I was already starting to feel. The kit was just a total dead weight behind me and we had yet to reach any sort of challenging terrain. It took me a few hours of struggling to identify the problem. During our test of the wheels we had bought both air filled and foam filled tires to compare the benefits, lightweight vs durability. I had by pure chance ended up with all four air filled tires which had then deflated due to the massive temperature change between home and the north of Iceland. At around 2 or 3 degrees the tires went flat. Neil had somehow lucked out and ended up with all four foam tires which explained the difference in our progress. Of course despite our very stringent kit planning, neither of us had remembered to pack a pump. Regardless of the initial struggles we ploughed on well for the first day, surpassing our expected distance with the aid of snowploughs occasionally clearing the snow on the road ahead of us. The limited 4 to 5 hours of daylight had no impact on our travel time. We used as much of it as we could, then use head torches for the rest.

As with every expedition the first few days are all about picking up your routine and establishing your part to play in the campcraft. We were expectedly clunky and a bit dysfunctional at first and it took us a lot longer to set up and break camp. We refined this as the expedition progressed.

On the second day we split the foam and air-filled wheels 50/50 to try and make it fair, but I still felt totally out of it. By only day three I was repairing a fault in my sleeping bag and patching up my feet that had rubbed atrociously on my Nordic ski boots. They’re not designed for walking great distances and the raw flesh on my foot was the result of doing it anyway. The pain was quite agonising at times and it was a relief to be clipping into our skis part way through the same day. The pulks were still too heavy to pull up some of the hills with the thin layer of snow available, so we ended up shuttling the kit in two trips. Already we created a kit dump of anything we had already decided was “excess.” The kayak trollies were included in. The 8 or 9 kilos that we left was wrapped up and buried in the snow at the roadside with the plan to collect it once we completed the expedition. It had been a long day shuttling and despite taking on a chunk of the elevation to the Icelandic Plateau we still had well over half to go, which was even steeper still. The prospect was daunting and I was still struggling to keep pace. My whole body felt ready to give up already and I had no idea why.

I hadn’t been sick for 24 hours so that was good enough to move. I also hadn’t eaten but we couldn’t wait around anymore as we had a plateau to ascend and had already used one contingency day. Already the days began to merge, it wasn’t until I got a message on my InReach from my girlfriend Jo saying “Happy New Year” that any concept of time caught up.

I make no claims to be a gifted or experienced skier and in hind sight the things I have thrown myself into are a little ridiculous. If I was going to come unstuck anywhere it was bound to be on mission impossible in the middle of Iceland. I could feel Neil’s frustration every time my pulk tipped over whilst I was hauling it on an off-camber slope. A mixture of poor loading and poor skiing meant it happened several times. He had to ski back every time to right my pulk again so I could progress. Admittedly I was still physically struggling with illness but pushed myself to get up the hill. Had this been in some of the horrendous conditions we later experienced I would have endangered both of us. Fortunately we soon progressed pass the hideous slope, summited the plateau and almost immediately got hit by a white out meaning the googles and neoprene face mask came into action early on.

Although we had completed a chunk of the ascent we had a lot of undulating terrain to negotiate. For every uphill there was a downhill which seemed to lead into yet another huge up hill. Progress felt painfully slow, even though we divided it up into one-hour chunks with a 5 minute break to eat and drink. Mostly these were pretty prompt, largely due to the cold. By day 7 I had doubled up on my layers with thermals on and both Goretex jackets as the temperature dropped to -20, worsened by the slight wind that blew across us. This was our first day of seeing the sun since we had been here, the sky was clear, albeit briefly. Our campcraft had kicked in well and after erecting the tent we spent the first half an hour or so managing any moisture we might carry in with us. This included de-icing any clothing with scrapers and melting it the best we could. After that it was all bundled into a dry bag to stop the tent from getting wet. Sure it meant having slightly crusty layers to wear the next morning, but the alternative was an iced up tent and wet sleeping bags. As it was the water vapour from our breath made things wet enough already. Neil had insisted on bringing a pocket fan with him on the trip as a drying tool. I was not at all convinced and I am pretty adamant still it did nothing to dry out gloves or socks. It did however work pretty well in moving the air from the tent out of the vents and decrease the amount of ice and moisture we slept in.

The evenings felt short, but we had so much to do when we stopped so time was precious. One of us would cook whilst the other organised or repaired kit. Typically our stove played up in the negative temperatures despite coming equipped with an arctic pump. We ended up repairing it early on to make a sort of hybrid pump with parts from our spares and the repair kit. We had initially been lucky at some days in finding running water, but a broken stove would now mean no way of melting snow or ice for water to drink or cook with. Little things like a damaged rubber seal really can really throw your expedition into chaos.

We were absolutely battered. I can honestly say I have never been in any conditions like it. The winds were due to be around 70 mph, combined with the spindrift being flicked up at us like icy bullets from a gatling gun. We dug in the best we could and dragged the tent out. As we staked it out it got pulled up. On one occasion one of the snow pegs got flicked and lifted some 9 metres away from where we were laying on the tent. I scrabbled over to get it and sunk it back into the snow whilst Neil continued to lay spread eagle on the outer sheet of the tent. Our tent had been tested to approximately 60mph and is widely regarded as the best tent for extreme conditions, so this storm would be a good test of its ability. We finally managed to erect it using double poles, and tethered it more securely by wrapping the lines around buried skis in the snow and weighed it down with our pulks that were quickly becoming entombed in their own snow drifts. As we finally stabilised the tent, we just bundled everything we needed inside of it. No regard for moisture management on this occasion, just get in and get safe. We lay there for probably an hour or more feeling the tent buckle and bulge under the weight of the wind as everything else defrosted around us. After de-snowing and drying everything the best we could we eventually settled in for the night. In honesty I lay there listening to the storm a little dubious about the tents structural integrity, but I was so tired I still fell asleep pretty quickly.

As if we hadn’t felt the brunt of Iceland enough on the previous day, the next morning we woke to wet kit, porches full of snow and stomach cramps. Neil felt just as ill this time as I had previously and had to dig a tunnel through the snow to get out of the tent. The blown snow had whipped in through the vestibules of the tent and filled it to the top. Above us the snow that had become trapped between the fly sheet and the inner started to melt and drip on us. We had very little choice but to sit in the tent for a while with Neil pretty much wiped out though illness, and I myself wasn’t feeling too great. To add to the sickness we had both had by now, we were further gifted with diarrhoea. As if going to the toilet in minus conditions isn’t bad enough, we then had to try and manage that. We didn’t move for the day and left ourselves half buried in the snow.

After sitting out the continuation of the storm in wet sleeping bags which were soaking up the melted snow from the wet tent, we were pretty miserable. We had by now heard that another team attempting the same of us had had to pull out a few days previously, after being battered by another storm. Given the weather conditions we doubted conventional rescue would be possible and would likely have to wait for a weather window, possibly by means of a private hire helicopter.

All of that aside I agreed in the end to stop at the hut. Even then 25km was quite a stretch for us with how battered we already felt and the weight we were still carrying. I think knowing that another well prepared team had failed kind of put the expedition into perspective for me. I wouldn’t say I felt defeated, but certainly an element of doubt crept in. The morning we headed to the hut was slow going. We took 3 hours to pack up and take the tent down. Digging everything out took ages, and then melting the poles. We had taken a small amount of anti-freeze for exactly this thing, but with speed in mind we ended up using our hands to warm them up. Ill-advised yet it did the trick. In calm conditions we got away with it.

We made good speed until a few miles from the hut when we got bombarded again with another storm. The winds were so strong we struggled to make ground. Visibility was down to a couple of metres. We knew at some point there was a river crossing but at no point did we even notice where it started or ended. The visibility was so poor we skied across it blindly, guided in only by our GPS as the landscape became featureless. Eventually looming out of the blizzard the outline of a couple of huts crept up on us. Huddling in behind them was a massive relief and, after we finally dug our way in through the snow and ice surrounding the door, we unpacked everything and huddled around a small gas heater to dry our sleeping bags and tent. It felt good to have made it this far, but at no point did I feel any relief in being there. I started to feel ill again, suffering throughout the night and early morning . However, there was no real option to stay at the hut any longer. We were both exhausted and contemplating our options; had we stayed another day I think we would have caved in and quit.

From then we varied our planned route to go more direct. We had initially planned to follow the line of some of the F roads in order to avoid some of the bigger rivers that we might have encountered, but the conditions were such that we need not have worried. The snow and ice were that deep in most places that they were totally covered. We skied across them and saved ourselves several kilometres over a few days. You’d probably not be surprised to hear we ended up in another pretty bad storm, bad enough that we decided to dig ourselves in again after only half a day’s travel . Lessons learnt from the previous experience, but again with the joy of tunnelling out of our porches the next morning. Everything had held out pretty well, until one morning as we packed up the tent the tension line broke. It had taken the strain but one had eventually gone, with the whole pole housing coming away from the base of the tent. We managed to stitch it up well enough to keep it going for the rest of the trip.

From then on, we decided to do as much “feature hopping” as possible and aimed to set up our tent in the relative shelter of the increasing structures or landscape feature’s we began to pass. Before now everything had been open and exposed, but as we crossed the last part of the plateau and descended from it, the availability of good camping spots improved. It also meant more time spent going downhill, and whilst Neil enjoyed this reduced burden, for me it just meant I spent a lot more of the time sprawled out on the floor as I reached the limits of any skiing ability I had.

After sitting out some more bad weather for part of one day, we decided to leave late when it had calmed down and push on. The winds subsided but the snow fall increased. We skied on for seven miles in the dark during another blizzard. Navigating purely by headtorches that just reflected the white snow. Navigation in these conditions can be frustrating. Moving with your compass or GPS out makes skiing harder and the cold either kills the batteries or freezes the compass. I am a firm believer in navigation with a compass, but I have more and more frequently adopted technology to help make this quicker and safer. We both came equipped with Suunto smartwatches pre-loaded with our proposed route. I cannot exaggerate how much this helped us in some torrid conditions. Rather than frequently stopping to take another bearing, or dig out a GPS, we followed the route on our wrists. I think had we not done this we would have been out longer in some pretty dangerous conditions and risked failure through exposure.

As we progressed, we picked up the road again as most efficient way out of the highlands. It warmed up and the freeze thaw cycles left us with good ice to ski along. We smashed out long distances on this when we could. It wasn’t always perfect and one of our last days in the mountains involved wading into deep snow to crest the final peak. I still look back at that and can envisage the physical anguish we were both in. Totally exhausted whilst trying to pull ourselves through drifting snow that even our skis sunk into. I shouldn’t complain too much, Neil’s binding broke on one of his skis, and knowing it would likely be the final ski day, he completed our final mammoth climb with only one ski on! Remarkably, I think he still skied better than I could.

From that last climb, it was pretty much all downhill as we descended into civilisation. Farms began to spring up and even the odd hotel appeared at the roadside. Day 18 marked a pretty important milestone. It was the last storm we had to endure, but also probably the worst. We’d fortunately made it to an abandoned hotel and set up behind it. Later we were to find out that this had been the worst run of storms in many of the local’s lifetime. We again had to sit it out for the day before finally pressing on, this time on foot. Yes, the skis were stashed and strapped to our pulks as walked our way out.

We gradually trudged by the pumice fields of Hekla and saw the snow that had carried us this far dwindle to nothing. Our pulks suffered on the sharp rocks and chunk of orange plastic were gouged from the bottom. That was the last time we’d have to worry about them though. The following day we packed up and stashed all excess food, clothing, kit and pretty much anything we couldn’t fit into a holdall and rucksack at the roadside under a tarp. We wanted to go as light and fast as possible to finish this now. The first day on foot we smashed out 30km but at a cost to our bodies. It felt like mine had totally given up. Through tiredness we hadn’t been eating as much as we should have been, and the change from skiing to walking totally broke us both. Neil had an old hip injury play up meaning his walking was laboured, and a knee injury from slipping on the ice a few days before hampered my walking. Our race to the finish became a gradual hobble. We still needed to stop to eat or drink but resuming after our ritual 5-minute breaks on the hour was like watching two old men as our limbs had seized up in the time we stopped. I’d really not felt anything like it before, our bodies had deteriorated quite badly, and I can only guess that the muscles we hadn’t been using for the last few weeks had wasted away to support the ones we needed for skiing. Walking long distances in ski boots also hadn’t helped.

Our final day was the 21st of January. 21 days after we had begun. 4 massive storms since we set off from Akureyri, 351km away from our eventual end point. Approximately 92,400 consumed calories later and we were shells of what we had been at the start. Neil’s ankle had now given up and he was dragging himself on with his ski boot half undone to relieve the pressure. My feet were totally ruined, and the skin that had grown back had started to rub raw again even under layers of padding and tape. Knowing the longer we carried on the less chance of success we had, we picked a more direct route to the coast through the town of Hella, eager to end what was now suffering in almost every step, and eager to beat the next wave of storms due to hit us. We reached the coast via the wetlands at the south, only to find them totally frozen over and an unexpected final challenge in our current state.

Our first point of a call was a closed hotel around a mile from where we ended. Two bedraggled, smelly, battered English tourists huddled in the lounge area clutching a can of coke and a coffee recalling the arduous journey we had just undertaken to baffled, bemused and impressed host.

A massive thanks for the success of this expedition goes out to:

• Montane

• Expedition Foods

• Tribe

• Suunto

• IsoBaa Merino

• Kayak Carrier Systems