Hiking Mount Kaldbakur

I haven’t hiked up a mountain since... I don’t know, whenever my dad last made me! So I knew that hiking up Mount Kaldbakur last Saturday was going to be a challenge. It’s the highest mountain in the Westfjords at 998 metres (let’s round that up to 1,000) and quite a struggle to climb. Unfortunately it was very misty so we couldn’t get a good view but this definitely added to the experience! I felt quite detached from the real world being so high up on the mountain shrouded in fog.

The climb started with a scramble across a stream and a steep walk along a road, but that was only to get to the foot of the mountain. Once we were there we had to walk along a ridge which was quite scary. I was very glad that the mist blocked my view below so I didn’t know how far it was possible to fall.

Then we had a steep climb over lots of mud and rocks to get to the top. It was tough but very rewarding. It took a group of seventeen of us three hours to get to the top but we didn’t stay up there for too long: it was very cold and wouldn’t stop raining.

I was surprised that my fitness levels hadn’t declined too much in the last few weeks despite doing very little exercise and eating huge amounts of Icelandic skyr (like very thick yoghurt but quite healthy) and chocolate covered liquorice (not at all healthy). I managed to stay near the front of the group the whole way up but dropped further back on the way down; my fitness is better than my coordination and I was a bit scared that I would fall down the very steep mountain!

When we got back to Nupur we only had a couple of hours to get ready to go to a party in Ísafjörður. We had a great night but I did not have the energy to stay up until 7am this time! 

Me, Enya and Maarit.

Also, I was not quite as lucky as last week and got an incredible hangover. I think the last fortnight had caught up with me, and mixed with being tired out from the mountain and drinking just a bit too much wine, I’m ashamed to say I slept until 7.30pm. I only fully woke up when Maarit and Enya bought me a plate of food - I’ve made some very good friends here!