“A Man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by and by.” ~Mark Twain
I have always felt a sense of freedom and peace in wide open spaces. It is here, walking along jagged peaks and soaking up orange sunsets in the desert where I feel most alive. Yet, I struggle to think of myself a serious adventurer. Living in Boulder, where so many professional, outdoor athletes live or pass through, I feel like I am simply dipping my toes into the outdoors. I am surrounded by people who climb big walls and even bigger mountains for a living. There is no shortage of inspiration and I am learning to find my place in this expansive world of adventure. Exploring Iceland brought me one step closer to feeling like a true explorer.
Iceland is the yin and yang of fire and ice. Sparkling glaciers tower over black volcanic rock and everything else seems to fade away. Hiking the trail that snaked around the moraine, the gravity of the glacier pulled me closer so I could hear the history of the earth unfolding. As we approached, David wanted to get on the glacier and climb around. I so deeply wanted to take the risk and feel what it’s like to walk with millions of years of history beneath me but I have this innate cautiousness that I battle more often than I’d like.
I don’t have any mountaineering experience and the inherent danger of ice and crevasses intimidates me. As we grew closer, we put on our micro-spikes and David immediately ran out onto the frozen lake in front the the glacier and I pulled out my camera. While I was shooting I felt conflicted about wanting to be out there too and feeling afraid of being in the center of a presumably frozen glacial lake. With David’s encouragement, the ice won. The first couple of steps were nerve-wracking, the ice was fragile and I could hear it crackling under my feet; but with each step my confidence grew and the risk was outweighed by how exhilarated I felt. I’m not sure which felt more liberating, being on the ice or breaking free of my tendency to be cautious.
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| photo by David Garcia |
Climbing onto the glacier, I felt grounded and connected to the universe in a way I have only known a few times in my life. I felt roots growing through my feet and sinking deep beneath me. I wanted to go everywhere and nowhere. Walking around the base of the glacier, I quickly found impermanence in the midst of false certainty when my left leg, and then my right let went through the ice and plunged into frigid water. Quicker than my brain could process, with camera in hand, I caught myself on the edge of the ice and was standing upright, unharmed....wet, and with a throbbing shin, but otherwise unharmed. I don’t know how I pulled myself up. I’ve replayed it again and again in my mind, but I can’t recall the details. I just know for the first time in my life I learned that I do, in fact, have survival instincts and this was somehow relieving. I feel braver, less fragile knowing I don’t always have to rely on others to keep me safe. Thanks to the adrenaline pumping through me and wool long-underwear, we were able to continue our exploration.
Walking amidst ice so turquoise, it looked like the frozen Caribbean sea, I felt the importance of my insignificance. Tip-toeing to the edge of a crevasse I could have disappeared into the infinite darkness while standing on what seemed like forever. The wilderness has a way of reminding me of the impermanence of everything so that I remember to hold what I love most, a little closer, for as long as I can.
“No art can reproduce such colors as the deep blue of the iceberg.” ~Robert Falcon Scott
