14. - 20. July
Day 1
Ísafjörður - Aðalvík
There was not much hiking today, except along the road from the campsite to the harbour in Ísafjörður, where the boat would leave to Aðalvík. It was a bit bumpy at sea, but the views on bird cliffs, the fjords on the south side of Hornstrandir and Drangajökull were nicely distracting me from getting seasick.
After pitching our tent on black sand dunes next to the sea, we took a walk towards Rekavíkurvatn and were greeted on the way by an Arctic fox. Then we went to sleep to be rested for the next day.
Day 2
Aðalvík - Fljótavík
The next morning it was raining. We took shelter for breakfast in the hut at the campsite and met a group of sea kayakers. We discussed our travel plans and it turned out that they were planning the same route, but then over sea. It was still drizzling when we started walking, but not cold, the kind of weather in which you wear too many layers and start sweating underneath your rain pants. The first part of the trail we had already done yesterday, but now we were going to climb 400 m to a mountain pass (Tunguheiði). As soon as we could see the next valley where we would camp, we had a lunch break. From there the trail went steep down and it was not always visible, so we walked through some wet grass. To get to our campsite, we had to wade Fljótavatn, a lake influenced by the tides. We were lucky to arrive at low tide and randomly crossed the lake close to the summer houses of Fljótavík. The deepest part was around 1 m deep. The weather had cleared up, so we dried our stuff and tried not to eat all the homemade cereal bars we brought. And a bit later, we saw the group of sea kayakers arriving who camped again together with us.
Day 3
Fljótavik - Hlöðuvík
This day must have been the wettest and most adventurous I have had in Hornstrandir. After we left the summer house area in Fljótavík, we followed a non-existing trail on the northeastern side of Fljótavatn. This meant basically wading through a swamp for almost six kilometres, impossible to keep the socks dry. At the end of the valley, we climbed up to a mountain pass (Þorleifsskarð). From the base of the valley, no trail was visible, so we followed a GPS trail on OSMand. The clouds were hanging really low, so we couldn’t see where we were going and we soon entered the a world were we could only see ten meters in front of us. Somewhere up there, another hiker appeared from the fog, and we tried to say ‘hello’ to ask about the conditions on the mountain pass, but the other hiker did not see us. Was it a ghost maybe? But then we saw an orange stick and some footsteps in the mud, so we assumed we were on the right track. Not that the terrain got any easier. First we had to go traverse a boulder field just by a lake, then the “trail” went straight up a scree slope where for each two steps up, we went one down and we had to use our hands to climb. In clear weather this must have been a lot easier as Þórleifsdalur (the valley before the mountain pass) is really not that big. But then we reached the mountain pass and from there a visible path marked with orange sticks led us to the next small mountain pass (Almenningaskarð) and down to Kjaransvík. We walked by the sea to the next campsite, Hlöðuvík, where we met a friend and the group of sea kayakers, who offered us butter and freshly caught cod. What a great addition to our dehydrated food (even though we brought our own homemade dehydrated meals)!
Day 4
Hlöðuvík - Höfn
What I remember from this day is lots of steep uphills, quite windy, quickly eating some crackers to not get too cold, then the kind of fog on the higher elevations that makes everything wet. But on the way down, we also saw polar fox dens, polar fox cubs and then we arrived at Hornvík, where the rangers’ house is and a real toilet.
Day 5
Höfn
If I remember well, it was just really wet and rainy again, a day to take rest and stay in the tent. Maybe it cleared up later in the day? We did go out to look at the polar foxes and birds and landscapes. Oh, and there was a German photographer feeding pylsur (Icelandic hotdogs) to the fox cubs to then take photos of them. We asked if he knew what he was doing and he stated that he helped the cubs survive by feeding them hotdogs. The ranger had also talked to him, but apparently this men knew what is best for the cubs.
Day 6
Höfn
I decided, as I had visited Hornvík before in really good conditions, to stay by the tent, work on my knitting project and try to dry my socks and shoes. I did go for some strolls to take photos.
Day 7
Höfn - Veiðileysufjörður - Ísafjörður
As we had booked the boat from Veiðileysufjörður to Ísafjörður, we got up really early, packed and started hiking to cross the mountain pass to Veiðileysufjörður. It rained. My socks were still wet. But how lucky were we, when we got the southern side of the mountain pass that it was dry, the sun was shining and we had enough time to dry our stuff before leaving Hornstrandir.
