It’s been more than a year since I’ve published any updates to the blog, but finally I’ve gotten around to writing a little something.
For starters: I’m no longer living in Norway working with dogs, now I’m living on the saga island – Iceland. My current workplace is an outlet glacier called Sólheimajökull [English: Home of the Sun Glacier] which flows out from the 4th largest ice cap in Iceland – Mýrdalsjökull. Sólheimajökull is a bit of a misnomer because it’s rainy, cloudy, windy or a combination of all 3 most days of the year on this glacier. Though when the sun does come out, the view is fantastic – and so is the tan you get afterwards!
Our work here mainly consists of leading tour groups up through the valley leading towards the glacier, onto the glacier itself and then having a walk around the glacier checking out the neato ice formations (moulins/crevasses/glacier caves) and other cool sights up on top. I also do ice climbing tours on the same glacier – these are done mostly on ice walls about 6-7 metres in height. Usually we set up a rope system up top and either belay or lower clients and let them climb their way out!
In order for us to work here on the glacier we had to go through an intense 5 day training course where we learned basic rope work, glacial pathfinding, crevasse rescues, history of the glacier and most importantly how to guide clients who have never walked on ice before. We spent 4 out of the 5 days on the ice for more than 10 hours at a time to get ourselves used to the terrain and to learn about our surrounds. There can be a lot of dangers on the ice – most of which, if not handled correctly, will end in death. Falling 50 metres straight down into a moulin and never being seen again is probably the worst accident that can happen on the ice. You can also fall 15 metres and get wedged upside down in a crevasse, then with every exhalation you make you slide deeper into the crevasse – not really the best way to end your holiday… It’s always nice to know these things before guiding your first trip!
Other than this, we do perform step cutting duties on our access track up and onto the glacier. This involves chopping ice into stairs/steps that lead up and through terminal face (snout) of the glacier and onto the top “plateau” or flatter area of the glacier. All in all, fantastic exercise for the whole body and you really earn a nice cold beer at the end of a long day.
The nationalities of the clients we get vary quite a bit, though the vast majority of them are from the USA. Next biggest group would be from China & Taiwan. The rest would be split quite evenly between mainland Europeans, Canadians, and also folks from the UK. We do get the occasional Australian coming to visit, but that is quite rare.
I’ve included a few choice pics from my last few months on the glacier here in Iceland. If you would like to purchase any of these images (or any images from my other posts) in high resolution please drop me a message and we can organize something!
Enjoy!
My Nordic Life 
Happy Iceland times!! Sounds like an amazingly exiting adventure and a great job!! Nice photos also 🙂 Try not to lose any chinese people, heaven knows it’s easy to happen…
Yup it’s been pretty fun so far! The Chinese are not the worst ones surprisingly, you gotta watch out for Indians this time lol
Oh my, I understand, have seen some of these guys also… 😀
Looks stunning!
Wow what a fab job! Take care but enjoy…