“I have a proposition for you…”
In early February of 2015, I was driving from Indianapolis, IN to Terre Haute, IN when I received a phone call from my best friend, Sean. Sean and I have known each other since 2009 when we met during our freshman year gym class. From our college classes and through shared experiences, he and I became personal confidants, academic enthusiasts, life-long friends, and, what we consider ourselves fully, brothers.
After catching up and discussing how things are going in our lives, Sean asked me a particular question that I will never forget. He stated, “Mike, I have a proposition for you.” I, without hearing the proposition, said, “I’m in!
The proposition Sean had for me was a 15 day adventure to Iceland where we would hike, backpack, hitchhike, and get to personally exerience one of the most beautiful places on earth. After he presented his idea to me, I again reiterated my original response: “I’ in!”
Lessons Learned
1) Make a plan — but be flexible
Sean and I were set on making our trip really about one backpacking trail called the Laugavegur Trek. It is a five day hike from essentially the middle of Iceland to the southern coast. This trail is deemed one of the best in the world and you experience almost every type of climate (except for tropical) over the five days. The fourth day settles you down in a city called Þórsmörk. Þórsmörk was described to me by an Icelandic man as “the most beautiful place in the entire Earth.” From the pictures, I’d agree with him. The trail ends at an enormous breathtaking waterfall called Skógafoss. To say the least, Sean and I were excited for this trail.
When we first arrived in Iceland, our first task was to figure out how we were to make the several hour car
ride to the trail head. We went to multiple tourist information centers but we didn’t find out any useful information until we stopped in a Marmot store in the capital of Iceland — Reykjavík. The guy working behind the counter was not a local, but rather a guy from Michigan. He told us that the buses were not going to the trail head yet because there is too much snow. In fact, the only way to get out there was with a “super Jeep” (a Jeep that was lifted with gigantic wheels). And even if we were able to get a ride from someone with a “super Jeep”, Sean and I were not prepared to do the trail in knee deep snow.
Sean and I were extremely disappointed by this news. This trail was our one plan when we came to the island and now we had nothing. We could have stayed somber and complained, but we chose to act differently and roll with the change of plans. We made a plan in the beginning, but we remained flexible enough to adjust when our plan didn’t go exactly how we thought. By being flexible, Sean and I were able to salvage this trip and make it one that was truly unforgettable. We met some amazing people who offered us rides to places we never thought we’d get to.
2) Trust others and make relationships
With our change of plans, Sean and I met two guys from Los Angeles who were driving to a remote part of Iceland the next day. We asked if we could catch a ride with them and essentially be dropped off in the middle of no where. More specifically, we asked them to drop us off at Kirkjufellsfoss, a waterfall on a remote western peninsula of Iceland called Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Prior to our departure though, we met two other individuals from Boston who were traveling the circumference of the island in their rental car. We asked our Bostonian friends to pick us up 3 days later at a city near Kirkjufellsfoss called Grundarfjörður. They agreed to this and we stated that we would meet them at a dock in Grundarfjörður at noon in three days. With no cell phone service and no way to contact our Boston friends, we put our full trust in them that they would pick us up as arranged. If not, Sean and I would be stranded in a remote area of the island.
With these arrangements, we packed our backpacks and set off with our Los Angeles acquaintances to the peninsula. As planned, they brought us to Kirkjufellsfoss and we shared some amazing experiences with these folks on our journey there. They dropped us off, we said our farewells, and then it was just Sean and I again — no car, no plan, and a glimmer of hope that our friends from Boston would pick us up in a few days.
These 2 days backcountry camping with Sean turned out to be the best days of the entire trip. We camped upstream from Kirkjufellsfoss right in the middle of 3 waterfalls alongside the river with an amazingly beautiful glacier in the background. Here we were completely separate from society; alone
in the wilderness of Iceland.
Two days later, we left for the neighboring city of Grundarfjörður. We arrived a little before noon, made lunch at the docks, and waited patiently to be picked up. Minutes continued to tick by and then it was a half hour later. Sean and I began to worry and started to talk about a worst case scenario: we don’t get picked up. Just moments into that subject, we see a small brown car pull up and sure enough, it was our friends from Boston. If it wasn’t for our new relationships and putting trust in other people, Sean and I wouldn’t have been able to experience Iceland as we had, let alone have those two amazing days in the backcountry of Iceland.
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