Four kilos of skyr
Glacier training in Iceland, then straight back to Malmö, football schedules, and dinner.
Reykjavik, 06:00
Hotel Leif Eriksson. Six in the morning. I’m sitting alone in the restaurant and Hallgrímskirkja is outside the window, filling the whole view like the island wants to remind me where I am. It’s raining. Not proper rain. Just enough to make everything feel damp. I’m sneezing for no reason. I feel rough. Not dramatic. Just that slightly bruised feeling you get when you’ve been concentrated for days and then suddenly stop. The body is tired in a clean way. A small hangover. A bit of ache in my shoulders, probably because I pulled too hard yesterday when I should have used the legs more. The arms still want to do what the legs used to do. Old habits.
On the table there is breakfast. In my head there is skyr.
We bought skyr in kilos for the course. Kilos. Because I assumed everyone likes skyr. Because we wanted to be the organised guys who eat the right food and don’t live on gas station junk. Turns out I was basically the only one eating it. Four kilos left in the room when we packed up. Four kilos of good intentions, sitting there like a stupid souvenir. Iceland always gives you one of those. Something small and ridiculous that tells you more about how life really works than all your careful planning.
Yesterday was six hours in the car. We dropped Richard at the airport. Family emergency. He had to fly home. That changed the end of the course completely. The last day was supposed to be the one where we camped on the glacier, weather permitting, and practiced everything on snow, then moved like a proper team, and ended with that tired, quiet satisfaction you get when you’ve done something hard and didn’t cheat. It didn’t happen. Weather didn’t play, life didn’t play, and Richard had to go. That’s always how it is. You can write any program you want. Something always moves.
Me and Norm went out for dinner in Reykjavik last night. Two people, one dinner, around 230 dollars if you want to make it hurt properly. It was good. Nothing special. The kind of meal you forget the next day. You pay because you’re here. You pay because this is an island and everything has to be hauled across water and then hauled again across black lava and then cooked by someone who also has to pay rent in Reykjavik. That’s Iceland. You don’t hate it. You just notice it.
In a few hours I fly home. Back to Malmö. Back to the girls. Back to being a football parent, back to dinner logistics, back to ordinary life that is not ordinary at all when you think about it.
The group
When you sign up for a course with ten people you never know what you’ll get. That little worry sits there in the background. But I remember thinking on the plane that anyone who goes to Iceland for glacier training is probably a certain kind of person. I was right. Great group. None of them Icelandic but living in Iceland because they’ve chosen it, aiming to become guides. Focused people. Strong people. Kind people. Amazing people.
Norm is Norm. The grit of Kensington Alpine Club, and one of the kindest humans you’ll ever meet.
Richard surprised me. My memory of him is Kilimanjaro, sick most of the time and still pushing through. Here he was sharp. His logic mind is beautiful. 2-1, 3-1, five-to-one, 6-1, he saw it and it was done. Fast, agile, almost twenty years younger than me, and it showed.
The guides
Nicco and Andrea. Two young Italians. Calm. Analytical. Patient. No macho, no stress, no rush. They gave everyone time to sort things out. At the same time they watched the details. Lock the carabiners. Dress the knots. Don’t do the quick version.
You could see Nicco sometimes get tired of the same questions, but he answered them anyway, clearly, without drama. Andrea was the same kind of calm. You couldn’t ask for better teachers.
Day one
I’ve taken mountaineering courses since the early nineties. Mount Cook, New Zealand, 1992. Five days. I loved it. We climbed Ball Point. Back then I was extremely fit. I remember being way ahead of everyone because I cycled and ran and had that young-body arrogance.
This week wasn’t that.
The first serious moment wasn’t dramatic. It was stepping onto the glacier tongue. Hard ice. Open glacier. Most of the snow gone down low. It felt a lot like the start of Greenland, that same hard surface that punishes you when you hit it. Hands, knees, pride. Then you look into the blue cracks and you understand what happens if you make one mistake.
Hanging from one screw
At some point you’re anchored to one ice screw. One point. One knot you tied yourself. You know it holds. You know the gear is built for it. Still your head has a moment. I’m hanging from one screw in ice.
And then you calm down enough to do the next step, because you have to.
We learned knots, systems, rescue anchors. I’ve done courses before where nothing really stuck. This time it did. I think it’s because the teaching was excellent. I think it’s also because I listened differently.
Clove hitch. Butterfly knot. Catastrophe knot. Prusik. I’ve started to love the prusik. Simple cord, friction, body weight, technique. One for the foot, one for moving up. You can use Micro Traxion and other tools, sure, but I liked understanding the basics.
And the near-mistakes were always the same kind of thing. Small. A screwgate not properly locked. A knot that looks fine until it isn’t. The kind of mistakes that don’t look like mistakes until they do.
Age and my father
I’m comfortable being 64, 65 now. Not as fast. Not as strong. But also not interested in applause. Not interested in pretending. I do things slower. I accept that. I also notice that I don’t care what people think in the way I used to.
The last day on the ice, the amicable Leo commented on my age, I thought about my father. He died around my age. 64, 65. I cannot picture him hanging in a glacier system and hauling himself up. I just can’t. He lived in another lifetime, where being 65 looked different. I don’t know what to do with that thought except let it land for a second.
Weather, Skaftafell, and the half day
Weather hung over the whole week. Not storms, just wetness in the air, low cloud, the threat of whiteout. We didn’t summit. Fine. The course was about glacier knowledge, not a peak photo.
We went into Skaftafell. Svartifoss. Sjónarnípa. That view over Skaftafellsjökull where you stop talking. We did half a day because higher up it turned into rain and snow and then nothing.
Food, money, skyr and back to Malmö
We tried to be smart with food. We weren’t smart with skyr.
Clif bars don’t work for me. Heartburn. Trail mix and wraps worked. Hot drinks mattered. A thermos matters in wind.
In a few hours I’m back with the girls. Back to football parent life and dinner logistics and ordinary chaos. It’s always a bigger jump than it should be. Like that story about Chief Seattle waiting for his soul to arrive after the train.
What I want to bring home is simple. Put yourself in something hard once in a while. Something that demands you. It cleans you out.
What I’ll lose immediately is sleep. Outdoors gave me seven, eight hours most nights. Back home, we’ll see.
Kyrgyzstan is next. Three weeks to make it happen. Money and time. That’s the private fear. Not the glacier.
I’m sitting here looking at Hallgrímskirkja, sneezing, thinking about an ice screw holding my weight, and four kilos of skyr in a hotel room.
Life is good.
