A Day to Remember

So, I keep looking and there is no way around this. This is arguably the most important day of the expedition.

July 26, the final stretch of the central Sprengisandur. 65 miles. Not because of technical difficulty. Not because of climbing (though there is a lot - 6,753' of climb). But because of the scale. I'm estimating 10-12 hours in good weather. And lastly, I'll just get this out: the presence of ghosts.

Break this day up if you have to, but like every medieval traveler to the Alþingi, I will be working hard to get my ass across that day. Because if a storm like the one in '22 comes, no one will come until it's over, a day later.

And timing. The issue is two days before the trek to Dyngjufell Hut will also be exhausting. To reach Dyngjufell Hut, we cross Ódáðahraun, Iceland's largest lava field, and one of the largest in the world: more than four thousand square kilometers of black basalt, ash, and wind stretching beneath the northern edge of Vatnajökull.

It is a landscape so immense and austere that NASA brings astronauts here to practice reading the surface of another world.

This might be your last day of riding . Mark will find you easy enough, and then it's a straightforward route back to the coast and Reykjavik, where you will be able to have a warm bed.

Btw, you can leave your Cheetos with me.

Over three days, with the overwhelming sense of scale and isolation you will forget what the world looks like. I'm serious. The immensity will swallow you. If the weather is bad you may believe at times you will never return.

If the volcano erupts - and there is currently a lot of seismic activity under Vatnajökull , as Aaron shared - that will provide plenty of water.