Next year myself and 2 friends are doing a tour of Iceland in April and decided it would be rude not to climb Icelands highest. I'm looking at the info on Summitpost, Youtube and the usual info resourses and the topic of guides keeps coming up. I'm not a big fan of using guides for something I'm capable of but also understand some mountains can be dicey with crevasses if we're going over a glacier.
My question is, should I need a guide? I climb both summer and a bit of winter. I've had winter experience in places like the Tatra's, Scotland. I'm good with crampons, axes and navigation and carry a gps for grid ref back up.
Any info on maps would be great. Please post any info that may be of use. Thanks in advance.
If you can't perform crevasse rescue then I would have thought that's a pretty major reason to get a guide. If you really want to go it alone then why not do a crevasse rescue course this winter and then practice everything twofold before you go.
You will need to know how to move on a glacier, including roping up and crevasse rescue.
The approach is pretty featureless in poor visibility, and compasses may not be entirely reliable in Iceland, so make sure you have spare batteries for your GPS!
April is quite early in the year and you can expect a lot of snow, and if so you may find snow shoes more useful than crampons but it will depend on conditions. Hvannadalshnukur is near the coast so you should be able to get to it, but some of the interior roads may not be open for another month or two. I went in July (many years ago) and even then some roads had only just opened. The guides don't seem to start running their trips until May.
Thanks for the posts so far. Crevasse rescue will be on the list of Scotland winter to'do's to get up to speed with that. Watching some youtube vids, the hike up does look fairly featureless so I'd kind of clocked that. This ones a funny one to call, it doesn't seem technically difficult but potentially dangerous if somebody took a fall down a hole. Thank you.
> it doesn't seem technically difficult but potentially dangerous if somebody took a fall down a hole.
Yes, that just about sums up most glacier travel.
In terms of technique, you should be thinking 'Alpine' rather than 'Scottish winter', although the scenery and weather may put you more in mind of the latter. There's no need to wait until winter to practice glacier skills, any small crag or large boulder which will stand in for a crevasse will do. Likewise moving roped up can be practiced anywhere.
The BMC's 'Alpine Essentials' DVD has some useful tips.
I climbed Hvannadalshnukur in 2003 via what I assume the Summitpost website calls the Sandfellsleid route, it was recommended to me by the guides at the Skaftafell National park campsite but I didn't use guides to climb it.
I wrote down a detailed description of it at the time which I could try and fish out for you if you want. As I recall the walk in from the road was hard to locate and is on fairly vague and intermittent paths and wasn't too easy to follow. Once at the glacier there was a well blazed trail to follow which looked like this http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=168157
but it won't look like that in April!
As you can see from the photo it's pretty featureless up there and although it was nice when I took that photo, as we approached the summit block it went from perfect visibilty to whiteout in 5 mins for which it is notorious. We were able to follow our footprints back but if the wind had covered them it would have been very difficult to navigate without a GPS. I can't recommend enough that you use a GPS to log your route as you climb so you can follow it back and don't just keep it in the sack "in case".
If you can get GPS coordinates in advance for a few key points on the route that would help you find the way in poor visibilty.
The route itself is technically very easy with just a short steep section to gain the final broad summit ridge but its barely grade I and 1 axe is fine. There were a few crevasses but the routes is not badly crevassed (or at least it wasn't in 2003) and I'd imagine that in April they would be well filled from the winter snow but obviously you must learn crevasse rescue as I doubt there'll be anyone around to help you! Of course, being in a party of three is a big advantage when on glaciers as it makes rescue a lot easier if there's two of you on the surface.
The other thing to note is that its a big day out, over 2000m of ascent and a round trip of about 15 to 18 miles (I can't remember exactly now). The snowline will be a lot lower in April and if you have to do a lot of breaking trail that would be one hell of an effort. I'd seriously consider spreading it over 2 days. We camped just below the edge of the glacier where there was a bit of even ground (mostly its too rough and rocky to camp on) but you could camp on the glacier itself as its very flat. I suspect you may not be able to tell where the glacier actually starts at that time of year so you'll be camping on snow anyway.
Let me know if you want that description of the walk in and I'll try and fish it out for you.
> April is quite early in the year and you can expect a lot of snow, and if so you may find snow shoes more useful than crampons but it will depend on conditions. Hvannadalshnukur is near the coast so you should be able to get to it, but some of the interior roads may not be open for another month or two. ... >
The walk in starts from the ring road which must a priority to keep open even throughout the winter. I imagine it would only be closed briefly during or just after heavy snowfall before it gets ploughed.
Hi. Trekked up Hvannadalsnukur this July, so don't know what the conditions would be like in April. Our main challenge was that it's a long hike, you start practically on sea level so it's a good idea to start early. We roped up when we reached snow/glacier as adviced by the guides. I think this was at around 1300m altitude, and the path was for the most part easy to follow until then. Saw some small crevasses but it wasn't really what I would have considered crevassed terrain. The last bit is a bit steeper but not actual climbing, and we walked on two feet all the way. In hindsight I would have been happy doing the whole thing unroped but that is off course dependent on conditions etc. An April ascent might be very different!
There is another route, which we were told was not in condition and would not be safe. Met some people later who had not sought advice and just gone up this more challenging route, they didn't consider it unsafe.
I think we bought the map at the base of the mountain, there is a campsite there and stuff. The guides are very helpful and happy to give advice and input even though you have no plans on using a guide for the walk.
Good advice and info from Pec, I'd say. The key thing in April will be the weather: it could be very hostile – remember what it can be like on the Cairngorm plateau in February and then think of what a similar met condition could be like a hundred miles or so south of the Arctic Circle. (For comparison, keep in mind that most roads in the Icelandic Highlands will be closed in May and some of June.)
Dick Philips, who knows more about Iceland than most, told me that Iceland's weather can be reckoned to be similar to Scotland, except 6 weeks earlier, and having been there twice in summer and twice in winter, I've no reason to disagree with him. Of course, the weather could be OK... Or you could have strong winds and be breaking trail in powder snow from sea-level...
There'd be no harm in testing the waters by emailing some guides and asking if they'd be willing to guide you in April and what they reckon the chances of success would be: you wouldn't be using any underhand tactics in asking such questions.
I love this forum sometimes. Guys, thanks very much for the info, everything I wanted to know is covered in these posts. Pec, if theres any additional info in your notes that might be of use then I'd be greatful.
2 days hiking in April might be the way to attack it. Thank you VERY much.
> I love this forum sometimes. Guys, thanks very much for the info, everything I wanted to know is covered in these posts. Pec, if theres any additional info in your notes that might be of use then I'd be greatful. >
OK. I'll try and find it but it might take a few days, I've no idea where it is!
Glad to be of help, and it's nice to have it acknowledged.
I've got a not wholly dissimilar (!!) trip in mind and found much of what I wanted to know from digging around via search engines. There's loads of info out there... Including maps and books with descriptions of alpine climbing, but no one seems to trust books nowadays!
In reply to olddirtydoggy: Thanks for the links pec, the images are roughly familiar from some of the vids I've watched. I just noticed on that guide site they are guiding it for £200 pp, thats a damn good wage I'd say if you can get a pack together.
Books and maps are the next step. Stamfords might be my next call or maybe Rockfax. I do tend to overplan routes rather but that said I don't like surprises on winter routes. Thanks again for the comments and help, this has saved me a lot of time and guess work.
There's a brief description and route map in the book "Summit: 100 Mountain Hikes in Iceland" http://www.forlagid.is/?p=600235 . I'd be happy to scan the page for you if you PM me! As for paper maps, I don't think you can do better than this: http://www.stanfords.co.uk/Activities-and-Interests/Maps--Atlases/Skaftafel... . Despite the 1:100k scale, the detail actually isn't bad, but the paper they are printed on is terrible - worth sellotaping the back of the folds before you use it!
In reply to Mark Bull: Many thanks for the info. A scan would be greatfully received if possible. I noticed the map link and it's confirmed the one I thought it was. Thanks again for the post, really helpful stuff.
> Pec, if theres any additional info in your notes that might be of use then I'd be greatful. >
I've had a look over the weekend for my notes but can't find them in any of the places I'd expect them to be but I've moved house three times since I was in Iceland so they could be anywhere.
I'll keep it in mind and if I come accross them I'll mail them to you.
