Beyond the Beaten Path – A story from Iceland's Highlands.

If Stanley Kubrick had really faked the moon landings, he might have done it somewhere near Skaftárhreppur.

Home to black volcanic craters and vast fields of ash, Iceland’s Highlands are as analogous to the lunar surface as anything found on Earth. NASA tests rovers here, and photographers and filmmakers have flocked since the island exploded in popularity over the last decade. I got a brief taste of the volcanic heart of the island on a bikepacking mission in 2018, but six years and eight visits later, the region had mostly managed to slip through my fingers.

Christian and I swapped our usual December trip for September this year, hoping that warmer temps would allow for better access to rugged F roads, normally off-limits due to early season snow. We had dialed in our focus over the years, and worked with some local friends to plot a week-long road trip through a photographer’s paradise. Nick was coming along to work on a project of his own, and the three of us had spent the weeks prior packing and reviewing the route. Glacial river crossings and unpredictable weather events would keep us on our toes, and limited infrastructure meant we’d have to be well-equipped and self-sufficient.

An hour before the sun rose, we left the other tourists behind on the South Coast and headed North on F35 toward Kerlingarfjöll, the winding road hidden for most of the journey behind the A-pillar in our rugged rental Hilux. The roads were in rough shape, and I hoped the truck would handle the washboard sections better than the piece of shit Suzuki I had driven across the Bolivian Altiplano a few months prior. We promptly lost cell signal and found what we were looking for: the volcanic center of the island all to ourselves.

This part of Iceland isn’t all rolling hills and postcards like the ones on the South Coast. It’s barren and wild, with stretches of black sand, jagged rocks, and fog that rolls in without warning. We ended up in the thick of things on night one, and it took all three of us to get the tent standing in gale force winds. Clear skies quickly gave way to clouds — the aurora forecast was fucked and we crawled into bed.

Sleepless as usual, I slithered out of the red porthole and climbed up the hill behind camp. Higher ground provided a better vantage point of our route to Langisjór, mostly hidden the night before in the dark. It was just light enough to make out the shape of the glacial lakes below, their glassy surfaces mirroring the soft gray sky. Soon the first light filtered through the morning mist, revealing the volcanic landscape one layer at a time. Fields of moss unfolded into mountains, and I followed the jagged ridges as they stretched to the horizon.

The subtleties had always attracted me more than the big picture, and here I was more sure than ever. Lots of people had focused on the vivid, colorful scenery in Iceland, but I’d seen few that managed to capture the rawness and ruggedness that made the area so special. It didn’t matter — a blind photographer could make a pretty good living in a place like this.

I changed lenses and thought about my recent alpine ambitions back home in Colorado, where I had spent more time than ever this summer. There was a similar stillness up above 14,000 feet; a solitude that shrank things and put them in perspective. For a moment, I put the camera back down and just stood there, letting the wind cut through the silence. We finished our morning shoot on a mountain nearby, and packed up to head toward Landmannalaugar for lunch.

“Haha, FUCK!!!,” screamed the hot dog man, reacting to a giant German guy who had just slammed his head on the door frame while exiting. “Be careful, bro!” he laughed, and then turned around to add a tally to the wall behind the cash register. I carried my own hot dogs around the corner to have a moment to myself, looking out over glacial rivers that intertwined like arteries and meandered toward Laugahraun behind me.

The contrast between the black lava field and the colorful rhyolite mountains was striking, and I wondered when I’d have time to return and finish the Laugavegur trail. The boys caught up and we passed around cups of coffee, determined to dial in our water to paste ratio before realizing the hot dog man had snuck shots of Baileys in all three when we weren’t looking.

We soaked in the hot springs and swam toward the source, sifting through rainbow-colored rocks warmed by liquid magma flows barely beneath the surface. Later, we set up our tent near a few other folks and sat around to review the day’s work and make a plan for tomorrow. Shouts outside interrupted the shit talking, so we set our cameras down and spent the rest of the night watching the northern lights dance over the hot springs that gave the community its name.

A moment of overconfidence before nature forces a reality check, and we experienced one heading West on F210 toward Maelifell. The final river crossing was notorious, and we found it in even worse shape than advertised. Eager to prove his worth, Nick quickly stripped down and made his way across, plotting a path for the driver’s side tires with each careful step. Christian headed up the hill to spot the route from a better perspective, and I climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Inching forward, I felt the weight of the truck shift as the tires dipped into the current. For a moment, the world went silent except for the sound of rushing water and the engine struggling to push through — this was one of those moments where things could go wrong fast. We continued forward.

The Hilux crawled out of the river, and we rummaged around for a dry change of clothes for Nick. We had been completely on our own all day, but as soon as we had repacked the truck we heard another car pull up and an Austrian guy yelled at us from across the river. He was on a mountaineering mission to climb some glacial peaks nearby, and would unfortunately have to turn back after deciding his vehicle didn’t have the clearance to continue. I joked that I probably followed him on Instagram, and it later turned out that I did.

We never made it to Maelifell, but we did make friends with a couple of Norwegian surfers and half-jokingly planned a house swap for sometime in the future. The sun was getting low, so we stopped at an overlook to sit on the tailgate and soak in the last light of the day. My drone took off from the roof of the truck and ventured out over the glacial plain that seemed to stretch forever. I never touched the shutter, I just wanted to see the mountains how the birds would. Windows down and music up, we left the F roads and made a right onto smooth pavement.

A snack stop at the N1 was in order to fuel the drive home, and I let the cashier pick a candy bar for me from the rack. Nick slept in the backseat. Christian munched on black licorice and looked out the window, stopping every few minutes to write something in his notepad. David Byrne sang about eating moon rocks, and I drove East without thinking. I knew every bend in this road.

Back at the rental car return, we brushed off the last bits of volcanic dust and repacked our bags as we waited on a ride from the airport shuttle. We swapped stories over our last cups of skyr, thanking Thor et al that we had seen the Highlands up close and left unscathed. During his final check, the attendant walked us to the front of the vehicle and asked us when we had last seen our front license plate. Christian and I glanced at each other and laughed, realizing the Highlands had claimed a little piece of us after all.