Sólheimajökull Glacier Hiking | Iceland Adventure Travel Guide
I love hiking, but glacier hiking? That’s a whole different level. Moreover when it is glacier hiking in Iceland, the Land of Fire and Ice (doesn’t it sound like aM land from Game of Thrones?), and what did I leave with? An adventure of a lifetime!
The Sólheimajökull glacier hike was one of my two absolute top favourite experiences in Iceland. The second being the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon boat ride, which you can read about here.
I made a short, cinematic sneak preview of what it was like to do then Sólheimajökull glacier hike here (please like / leave a comment!):
For more details, please continue reading this travel guide. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the Sólheimajökull glacier hiking tour, and some Iceland’s most stunning landscapes!
TL;DR The Sólheimajökull glacier hike is a MUST-DO activity. If you’re running short on time, why not pin this for a later read? |
Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
Where can you find the best glacier walks in Iceland?
Located close to the Skógafoss Waterfall, Diamond Beach (Breiðamerkursandur) and Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon (among many others), Sólheimajökull was the perfect introduction to the world of glacier hiking for me.
Why?
Because Sólheimajökull is an easy to moderate climb. While inclines can be somewhat steep, it is still quite easy once you dig your heels into the ice with your crampons.
You also get frequent rests along the way so it is never too hard. Of course, the breathtaking landscapes make for frequent photography sessions along the way.
If you are looking for alternative places in Iceland to go on a glacier hike, you can visit:
Svinafellsjökull: Svinafellsjökull is located within the Skaftafell Nature Reserve, part of Vatnajökull in South Iceland. It is known for its mountain hiking trails, waterfalls, ridges and views of the chunks of glaciers from the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. At the entrance to the Skaftafell Nature Reserve, I saw quite a few tour operators offering glacier hikes. You can book on the day or for another day.
Vatnajökull: A less commercial area for hiking, Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Europe. It covers 8% of Iceland and is connected to many other glaciers, including Svinafellsjökull. You can join Guide to Iceland in a jeep ride and walk across Breiðamerkurjökull, Vatnajökull’s outlet glacier, and its surrounding mountain views.
Snæfellsjökull: At 1446m above sea level, Snæfellsjökull is a glacier-topped volcano and offers the most challenging glacier hike in Iceland. Succeed and be rewarded with an incredible view from above of the Westfjords and Reykjanes peninsula. Guide to Iceland also offers tours take depart from Reykjavik, though the tour lasts around 12 hours. It only runs between April to September of each year.
Location of the Sólheimajökull Glacier Hike
Sólheimajökull is an outlet glacier of the fourth largest glacier in Iceland – Mýrdalsjökull.
To get to Sólheimajökull, drive along the main road before turning onto Road 221 for around 4.5 km. This will take you to the main base where the tour operator is located.
Sólheimajökull Glacier Parking Lot, Cafe & Toilets
There is a spacious car park right at the foot of the mountain that leads towards the start of the Sólheimajökull glacier hike (on your right). You will see a small construction container to your left.
The parking at Sólheimajökull is free to use.
The container is where the tour operator is based. It also contains toilets and a small cafe serving hot drinks and food. This is also where you go to meet up with your tour operator, get your crampons, ice axe & safety briefing!
The Sólheimajökull Glacier Hiking Experience
We went with Mountainguides as our tour operator for the Sólheimajökull glacier hike.
Our 2 hour hike was scheduled for 1 to 3pm, but we were advised to arrive at least half an hour before. This was important as 1pm is the time when the actual glacier hike began.
We arrived much earlier than 12.30pm and spent some time exploring the surrounding areas, which was quite spectacular.
When 12.30pm came, we lined up within the Sólheimajökull cafe (i.e. the container) to meet our guide.
Seated on the wooden benches, each of us had our feet measured and the crampons adjusted accordingly, before both crampons and ice axe were handed to us.
If you are wondering what shoes to wear, make sure it is something with a hard solid base. I wore my Salomon hiking boots.
Even if your shoes aren’t appropriate, they have plenty of boots for you to switch into.
The Sólheimajökull Glacier Hike Begins
We first departed by walking along a desolate stretch of volcanic black sand.
The glacier could be seen in the distance – a large mass of black-coated ice surrounded in a thick white mist. It got chillier as we approached the glacier. This walk took us around 20 minutes.
According to our guide:
Sólheimajökull gets a lot of precipitation and snow. The snow accumulates over the years, pressing down on the earlier accumulated mass of snow and squeezing the air out.
The snow beneath becomes compacted, its oxygen having been squeezed out, which is when it turns into ice. The really heavy ice at the top has to move somewhere at this point, so it starts going down the mountainside, creating the valley that we saw.
The glacier used to be in the area where we are standing, and the glacier used to carpet all the sediment and particles in various shapes and sizes that had been grinded into different sizes from the glacier.
We stopped beside a sign from an elementary school that comes every year to measure the Sólheimajökull glacier.
When they first come in 2010, there was no glacier lake. Just frozen glacier. Since then, the glacier has melted a lot.
1995 is the year that the glacier is estimated to have begun its retreat at a rapid pace.
We then proceeded in our trek towards the glacier, the murky brown glacier lake along our left and a gigantic mountain on our right.
Wearing Crampons for the First Time
We soon arrived at a congested area, the glacier walls looming ahead. This was where we were instructed to put on our crampons.
While the crampons looked scary with their sharp spikes, they actually weren’t hard to wear or use. We untied the crampons from the ice axe, pushed back the metal ring at the heels and slipped our feet in. It was a little like wearing slippers, while still having your shoes on.
The crampons were linked to a bright yellow lace (it looks like a flat shoelace, albeit three times the normal width). The lace was looped through the holes in the crampons, found on the left, right and centre of the crampons. This was the crucial bit as it kept the crampons on our feet.
The lace was really long, so the excess was rolled into a ball and stuffed into our socks! That’s the recommended way, to avoid the possibility of the lace rolling out and tangling with our crampons as we are hiking.
Our tour guide gave us some tips when walking with crampons:
- Stomp your feet: If you find yourself slipping, stomp your feet hard into the ice beneath you. This gives you an instant grip and I can testify that this works! If in doubt at all, just stomp stomp STOMP.
- Walk with your feet far apart: Don’t place your feet too closely to each other or your spikes will get caught in your socks etc. This is the part that visitors tend to always forget as it is a little unnatural, which can make things a little hairy. Just walk slowly, there is no rush. Get used to the rhythm.
- Watch your feet: The glacier landscape varies a lot. There are constant streams of glacier water trickling pass, small rocks, crevasses and uneven piles of ice and melted slush awaiting. Watch where you step.
- Don’t swing your ice axe around! Suffice to say that the rationale is clear on this. The Sólheimajökull glacier was pretty congested due to the amount of tours being conducted. You don’t want to get into an accident.
- Walk in a ‘penguin line’: Don’t rush to get ahead of someone else in the group. Walk in a straight line, one behind the other, like a penguin. But also leave a decent gap between each other so you don’t run into another person, especially with those sharp crampons and ice axe!
The first thing I noticed during the hike were the mountains of black ash covering the glacier. It looked DIRTY; not the pristine ice I was expecting!
The ash all originated from previous volcanic explosions, some dating back to the early 1900s. The pyramid-shaped ash mountains are known as dirt cones.
In fact, Sólheimajökull sits upon an active volcano. We were told that the Katla volcano usually erupts every 40 to 80 years and it is overdue for another explosion.
When asked what we should do if an eruption occurred, our guide joked, “The plan is to run down!”
The Human Congestion
It is no exaggeration to say that the Sólheimajökull glacier is very popular during the summer. There were so many other tours being held at the same time, some private ones included. Other tours had their guests wearing helmets (ours didn’t).
Because we were all using the same path – the safest route identified by our experienced guide – we sometimes had to wait and let other guests walk past us.
This human congestion cleared once we returned to the top, where the vast plains meant that we had more than enough space to ourselves.
The Many Sights & Sounds of the Sólheimajökull Glacier
What does it sound like while glacier hiking?
Imagine this:
The crisp crunching of ice.
The constant trickle of water , flowing from streams burrowed into the crevasses of splintered ice.
The stomping of feet against ice & ice axes slicing into the ground.
Glacier hiking is a noisy affair. And there was so much to see at every angle.
A vast, ice-free mountain remained on our left, while the glacier was to our right. Some of the ice mountains were completely black from the ash!
There were also ice ridges, crevasses, mini waterfalls and streams everywhere.
And at certain points, there were even ice stairs for us to walk up. This may be due to the sheer number of visitors that the Sólheimajökull glacier gets.
Of particular mention are the moulins. Huge sinkholes that have tunnelled itself through the weakest spots in glacier, creating a swift flow of icy water leading out of the glacier. Our guide referred to it as the “drainage system” of the glacier.
The above moulin was one of the largest we found.
Apparently, someone once dropped an iPhone into it, only for it to appear in the glacier lake several days later!
It looked large enough for an entire person to slide through but… I wouldn’t advise it, for obvious reasons.
Second Part of the Glacier Walk
Once we had gone past the ash-clad glaciers, we arrived at the steep and even incline.
The weather as we were going up was very misty. It gave everything a mysterious, otherworldly view.
But doesn’t it look absolutely stunning?!
Though it wasn’t hard to walk, it went on for awhile. It felt a little like being on a different planet!
Two things stood out in this section.
Firstly, we found some clay! This mineral clay is the same clay that visitors pay exorbitant fees to use at the Blue Lagoon Iceland as a mud mask. However, on the Sólheimajökull glacier, we got it for free! Sadly, we didn’t have any container to store the clay so we left it where it was found.
Secondly, we learned how to drink water the Viking way. You place your ice axe horizontally across the crevasse where glacier water is streaming by. With both hands on the handle of your axe, lower yourself into a pushup position and drink directly with your mouth.
Who knew that you had to work so hard for a drink!
The Peak of the Sólheimajökull Glacier
We had the most incredible weather.
The misty, mysterious weather gave way to clear bright skies the moment we hit the peak.
We were given around 10 minutes up here to just take in the sight and of course, to take some photos.
Check out the video below for a view of the incredible peak view (minus the mist!!).
We could even see the murky glacier lake stretching out beneath us!
Doesn’t it feel like a surreal, prehistoric Land Before Time landscape?
Descending the Sólheimajökull Glacier
We took a slightly different route for our descent.
Rather than heading backwards, we took a right. Moving towards where the glacier lake awaited.
Along the way, we encountered a MASSIVE crevasse.
There was another guide at the site – you can just see him in the photo. He was setting up the equipment needed for a glacier climb! It is definitely something I would love to do one day if (when) I return to Iceland. Check this tour out if you want to do a glacier hike + climb combo tour.
Once we had passed by the crevasse, we returned to the ash-covered mountain slopes. The route henceforth was the same as what we had taken earlier, albeit a quieter one as many of the tour groups had left.
We walked all the way back to where we had first put on our crampons.
After removing our crampons, we were asked to clean them by washing them in the glacier lake. Once done, we tied them around our ice axe and headed back to the starting point.
Icelandic Glacier Hike Completed!
The actual glacier hike took us 2 hours, but it was one of the most unique 2 hours I have had in awhile.
If you have never done it before, DO IT! And if you are contemplating, don’t hesitate and just book!
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FAQs
I have tried to cover any other questions you might have about glacier hiking in Iceland in this FAQ.
If there is anything missing, or if you have any other feedback, leave a comment below!
Why are the glaciers so blue?
The glaciers are thousands of years old.
Over that long period of time, the intense compression of snow has pushed all of the air out. Light enters straight into the ice, resulting in an intense absorption of red light versus blue light.
Due to the lack of reflected red waves, the glacier appears electric blue.
Why is the glacier coated in a black layer?
The black layer is volcanic ash – the remnants of earlier eruptions as far back as 1918.
The most recent came from the infamous 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption that grounded Atlantic air travel for a week!
Who is allowed to do a glacier hike in Iceland?
The Sólheimajökull glacier hike is accessible for almost everyone to do. My group had an old man with clear knee problems but he still managed to do the tour, albeit at a slower pace.
That wasn’t a problem as none of us was in a hurry. The guide also stopped every now and then to let everyone catch up, as well as point out interesting landmarks for us to see. Furthermore, there is a massive human traffic jam to consider!
That being said, there is a limit of how young you can be to be allowed to join. Children must be at least 8 years old. This is a result of the crampons that need to be fit to your shoes, and they tend to start from shoe size 36.
TL;DR Glacier hiking is a family activity, so long as they are older than 8 years old! |
How long does the glacier walk at Sólheimajökull?
The glacier walk takes around 2 hours.
For me, my glacier tour slot was for 1 to 3pm. However, you must reach the location by 12.30pm at the latest for the compulsory safety briefing, measuring of and distribution of crampons/ice axes.
I think it’s worthwhile going early because the surrounding areas where the tour base is breathtaking! Very Insta-worthy.
In short, allocate at least 4 hours to this glacier hiking activity, not including the travelling time.
What should I wear for the Sólheimajökull glacier hike?
These are the things I wore for my Sólheimajökull glacier hike in July:
- Two layers of thermal base layer, preferably woollen and long-sleeved. Woollen is best to retain heat even when you get wet
- Woollen sweater
- Waterproof jacket – important to protect yourself from the fierce wind, cold and potential rain
- Water and windproof trousers – again, to protect yourself from wild Icelandic surroundings
- Thick winter leggings – top tip! This gives an additional layer of insulation that I have always found so helpful
- Sturdy hiking boots – there should be 3 main criteria to your glacier hiking footwear: (i) it has a stiff sole; (ii) has a firm grip around your ankles; and (iii) is waterproof. Flip flops are an absolute no go. Even running shoes are unlikely to suffice as you need to fit your crampons to your boots. If your footwear is not suitable, there are other boots that you can borrow/rent from your tour operator when at Sólheimajökull
- Gloves – it gets very cold, and you might need to grip the ice as you manoeuvre past some tricky passages;
- Hat or balaclava – on some tours, you might be asked to wear helmets, so you should pick appropriate hat wear. I didn’t have to wear any helmet for my tour. Helmets or not, a hat was essential to me since it was so cold!
- Thick woollen socks – nothing is worse than hiking with cold, wet feet. Moreover, the initial climb is steep so you want to avoid unnecessary rubbing against your skin. I got my woollen socks from 66 Iceland, as the storekeeper told me that they are very popular among hardcore hikers (I’m planning for my Everest Base Camp 2020 hike), and they were AMAZING. Thick, soft, comfortable, and SO affordable
What other things should I bring for the Sólheimajökull glacier hike?
Here are some of my recommendations:
- Camera / Phone camera (all of the photos you see on this webpage were taken with my iPhone XS)
- Water bottle – ESSENTIAL!!!!! I really regret not bringing this. The water bottle is not just for drinking when you are thirsty, but also because at one point, you get to drink glacier water! None of us had brought our water bottles, otherwise, we could have also filled our bottles with glacier water to bring back. Imagine that!
- Snacks, such as energy and protein bars. You might get hungry on the hike up, so it is always a good idea to tuck away a small snack for a quick energy boost. However, remember to bring your litter down with you
- Sunglasses – not essential. However, if you are hiking when the sun is up, you might want to avoid the glare with a pair of shades
- Sunscreen (to apply prior to the hike)
Your experience will differ depending on the weather. It felt pretty cold to me. Since you’re walking on ice, you do want to invest in solid, waterproof boots at the very least. I would also layer up as it is quite chilly. The weather changes rapidly.
Also, try to keep the things you bring with you to a minimum. It’s always a nicer hike when you are overloaded with equipment.
When can you do a glacier walk in Iceland?
You can go glacier hiking all year round in Iceland, although certain tours run only at specific periods.
Summer is the best time to go on a glacier hike as it is considered the safest.
I would advise also thinking about the general Icelandic weather. It would be freezing if you did a hike in winter.
Personally, I thought that summertime was perfect as we had clear views. The sky even cleared up when we reached the top!
Can I do a self-guided tour of Iceland’s glaciers?
You could… BUT my honest advice would be: Don’t do it!
Glaciers are very volatile and unpredictable. You should always visit with a certified glacier guide. He (or she) will know what to look out for, the best paths to take and also have a network of support to rely on if anything happens.
Then what are the guided tours available for glacier walking in Iceland?
These are some of the guided tours I would recommend.
For guided tours departing from Sólheimajökull:
For guided tours departing from Reykjavik:
For guided tours that include other nearby Vik / South West Iceland attractions like the Skogafoss Waterfall:
How many people are in our glacier walking tour group?
My group did not go beyond 12 people but you can also arrange for more intimate group tours.
Where is the meeting point for the glacier hike?
We met at the Sólheimajökull tour operator base, which is also where the Sólheimajökull glacier hike begins because we were already in Vik. We stayed at the incredible Magma Hotel, which you can book by following this link.
However, day tours from Reykjavik are also aplenty. Expect to leave around 6 am for the long drive!
You can also meet at the Vatnajökull National Park in Skaftafell where some tour operators are based at. It takes around 4.5 hours to get to the Vatnajökull National Park if you are travelling from Reykjavik.
And finally, some of the tour operators might offer to pick you up from your accommodation.
Should I do another glacier hike if I have done it before?
If you have done glacier hiking before (yay you!) or have done Sólheimajökull before, my answer is a resounding YES. Glaciers are constantly on the move (or “crawling”), and its landscape shifts, growing and shifting on a constant basis.
Think you’ve seen it all? Think again!
Then again, you probably already know this if you have been on a glacier hike before. 😉
Travelling along Golden Coast Iceland? Read my other Iceland posts for inspiration/travel guides & tips:
- 120+ Travel Tips to Iceland
- Things to do in Reykjavik, Iceland
- Iceland’s Diamond Beach (Breiðamerkursandur)
- Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon
- Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach
- Kerid Crater
- Gullfoss Waterfall
- Seljalandsfoss Waterfall
- Skógafoss Waterfall
- The Best 8 Black Sand Beaches in Iceland
- Top 13 Travel Apps You Need When Visiting Iceland
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10 Comments
Darla
I love your video! One of my co-workers climbed a glacier and hurt her leg. This sounds a lot safer!
Iuliya
Glad you liked the video!! So much to learn but iMovies is such an amazing gem 🙂 And oh no, sounds terrible that she hurt herself!
Anna
Very interesting and informative article with a lot of stunning pictures!
I traveled in Iceland many years ago and is one of the places where I definitely want to return. As I didn’t do a glacier hike back then, it’s on the list now, so thank you for all the great tips!
Especially loved the FAQ section, very practical 🙂
Iuliya
Glad you found it useful! Hope you get to do a glacier hike soon 🙂 it was such an incredible experience for me!!!
Sage Scott
This would be such an experience! And I’ve always wondered what causes the black layer. Now I know!
Iuliya
Glad you learned something! I was totally shocked to hear about it, plus the fact that we were standing on top of an active volcano!
Becki
I visited Iceland a few years back in February, it was super snowy and icy. Nearly all the ares around the waterfalls were closed off due to the ice. I wanted to try and get out to do glacier hiking, but this was also off the cards due to the weather. They look amazing, and certainly something I need to go back for in the summer to do.
Iuliya
Ahh that is the thing about Iceland – such unpredictable weather!! I hope you get to go glacier hiking one day thou!! 🙂
Mayi
This sounds like a great adventure but I am not sure if I would be able to do it. I can barely manage with a single-digit temperature, I’m not sure if I would be able to cope. Your photos are stunning!
Iuliya
To be honest, it actually wasn’t that cold at all! Especially when the sun came out. Very manageable 🙂