Walking on a Glacier in Iceland

A morning in Vík

September 2024, Wanvela's Iceland 8-night trip with 6 guests. Day 3 began at Hotel Rangá on the South Coast. 7 am: -3°C, wind at 35 km/h, sky clear.

The glacier walk at Sólheimajökull is something every one of our Iceland clients does, it's a glacier experience that takes only three hours (not a full day) and works for children aged 8 and up.

What Sólheimajökull is

Sólheimajökull is an outlet glacier of Mýrdalsjökull, Iceland's fourth-largest ice cap. The glacier is 8 km long, 1–2 km wide, and moves 50 metres a year.

It has retreated 1.5 km in the past 20 years from climate change, Wanvela uses the trip to teach clients about environmental change as well.

The briefing

8:30 am, pickup from the hotel by Icelandic Mountain Guides (the operator Wanvela uses as standard). A 30-minute drive to the glacier parking lot.

9 am, briefing and gear:

• Crampons, steel spikes attached under boots, a 10-minute walking training
• Ice axe, for balance, not climbing
• Helmet, protection from stones falling from the glacier wall
• Harness, used in crevasse zones

The walk

9:30 am, we set out, the Wanvela group of 6 plus guide Hjalti. A 4 km hike, 90 minutes on the glacier, past crevasses, moulins (water holes), boulders the glacier has dragged with it.

The best crevasse sits in the middle, 25 metres deep, the ice so clear that a blue glow rises like natural light. Hjalti said every rope team has to pass it once a year. Today we walked around it.

"I walked on the glacier and kept hearing 'pop' sounds, the ice fracturing, a sound unlike anything I'd heard before. It was the planet breathing." - K. Aey, Wanvela Iceland trip

The moulin - the eye of water

Thirty minutes before the hike ended, Hjalti took us to a moulin. A moulin is a perfect circular hole in the ice, meltwater pouring down beneath the glacier, descending 100+ metres.

The family looked down into it in silence for five minutes, watching the blue light deep below.

Heading back

11:30 am, off the glacier, back to the parking lot. 12 pm, hot chocolate and kleinur (traditional fried pastry), which Wanvela arranges at the café at the exit point.

1 pm back at Hotel Rangá, the afternoon in the hotel's hot tubs.

Other activities the same day

After the glacier, clients can do:

• Reynisfjara black sand beach, 30 minutes from Sólheimajökull
• Skógafoss waterfall, you can climb 60 metres up the side
• Seljalandsfoss waterfall, you can walk behind the curtain of water

Wanvela tips

• The glacier walk requires age 8+, younger children cannot do it safely
• Clothing, thermal base layer plus waterproof shell. No cotton
• Gloves, two layers, thin liner inside, waterproof gloves outside
• Boots, Wanvela provides them, US 5 to US 15
• Avoid alcohol before the hike, it matters for thermal regulation

Compared with the New Zealand helicopter glacier

Clients who have done both say:

• Iceland Sólheimajökull · 90 minutes walking on the glacier, physical, tactile, slow
• NZ Franz Josef helicopter · 15 minutes on the glacier, quick wow, scenic, expensive

Wanvela recommends both if you're doing cool destinations in the same year, read a helicopter snow landing on Franz Josef.

Read the Ring Road itinerary, 8 vs 10 nights.