Relatively little change of location today: we would be at the Fosshótel Skaftafell one night more. But we did change altitude fairly much.

A number of nice sights today, but for some reason, I have only one page of notes in my journal.

Breakfast here was not as good as at the Hótel Rangá. The scrambled eggs looked like custard, but at least there was plenty of pickled herring. Then we hopped onto the bus for a very short drive, essentially around the corner, and started walking upwards. We got high enough for the view at the top of this page, and soon there was something fully spectacular in view.

The Black Falls, Svartifoss, could be seen from the trail for a good distance before the path descended into the forest. This was the view in the big picture to the left (large image, small) and the left-hand image in the sec­ond row (large image, small). Then we came out into the clear, and could get a good close-up view of the falls from below, as you see in the right-hand picture (big image, small). There was a troop of about a dozen British photographers making minute adjustments to their tripod-mounted cameras to get the perfect shot of this already well-documented tourist at­trac­tion, but I just did the basic point-and-shoot maneuver.

Strangely enough, my journal says of this day’s hike, “Nice views all the way, but I’m not slure that I covered the sceneery fully with my photographs.” But like Mark in his page for the day, I took a large number of shots, many of them fairly good, as you’ll see below.

So from Svartifoss, we climbed further up, and walked to a nice lookout point, getting better and better views. In the top row to the right, the left-hand picture was taken about 45 minutes after we were at Svartifoss, and since Mark is pretty clearly looking southwards, the glacier you’re looking at is to the west, so must be Skeið­ar­ár­jök­ull. (Big image, small.) All the other pictures on this page will be of Skaf­ta­fells­jök­ull, to the east of our hiking path.

Still on the top row, the right-hand picture shows Skeið­ar­á, a typical braided river that takes the outflow from both gla­ciers. (Big image, small.)

All these pictures had a lot of sky in them, not too in­ter­est­ing pho­to­graph­ical­ly, so I cropped them to a shallower shape, and that was even more fitting for the following shots, all taken with my cheap but nice fish-eye lens. Recall that it turns straight lines to curves if they don’t pass through the center of the shot. That explains the strange appearance of the clouds in second and third rows.

At any rate, the second row shows typical views from the lookout point—left picture (big image, small), right (big image, small). And I have to say that I really like both the view and the composition of the shot in the next row. It shows the whole tongue of the Skaf­ta­fells­jök­ull, and if you look in the big image, you can see the edge of the tongue of the Sví­na­fells­jök­ull peeking out beyond the head­land—that, you recall, was the glacier we walked on the previous day. Even the small image shows the pleasing di­agon­al com­pos­i­tion, with Ronnie sitting up close, and Mark in the middle distance, echoed by the line of flow of the closer glacier.

Similar viewing angle in the left-hand picture in the last row (big image, small), just different cast of characters and consequently different composition. But in the right-hand picture on the bottom row, which was taken about a half-hour later, we have left the lookout point far behind. (Big image, small.)

This is all of us but me: Barbara, Margie, Erling, Kay, Kevin, Gisele, Mark, John, Diane, Jerye, Kristín, Paul, Shirley. (Big image.)

Big image, small. Big image, small Big image, small

Big image, small Big image, small

We stopped for lunch half an hour or so later. What our hotel prepared for us was very dis­ap­poin­ting, not a recommendation for the establishment at all. But I did take the group picture above, at least.

Big image, small

Big image, small

Big image, small

About an hour later, we had some great views of the Skaf­ta­fells­jök­ull, as you see at the left. The gray or black band toward the far edge of the glacier originates in the outcrop of rock around which the glacier is flowng. The solid material scoured off the edges seems con­cen­trat­ed by the convergence of the ice as it meets beyond the rock. A nice effect.

From there, we walked, and walked, in fact this was the longest hike of the tour. I knew that it had started out with a northward path, and as we went onward, I kept my eye on the direction of the sun, so I could tell that we were still going in a northerly direction. I think it was while we were still on this course that I mentioned the fact to Erling, and he reassured me.

Eventually, of course, we turned to the left, westward and then southward, and we were on the way back. Although the total change in altitude was 600 meters, it was not a very demanding trip. And we did see some very nice scenery as we went along. More, I think, than show up among the pictures below: a number of very interesting outcrops of rock, and some very pleasant vistas.

Big image, small (2:16PM).	Big image, small (2:30PM).	Big image, small (2:44PM).
Big image, small (2:48PM).	Big image, small (3:29PM).	Big image, small (3:38PM).

We made our way back to the hotel, where we had a nice dinner starring char, and went to bed.

One of the last pictures I took this day. (Big image, small.)