Iceland 2015: Coolest ice caves ever!

Winter 2015 

Iceland

My trip to Iceland is quite eventful. I gained tons of experience in the short time I was there.
One of the best activity I did was hiking to the ice caves.
Just like the northern lights tour, I was quite torn because the price was crazy expensive. But I googled and knew I would never again visit another ice cave comparable to the ones in Iceland after this trip.
You'll see..

 After driving on a super-jeep, we have to take a hike to the glacier, where the ice caves are.

 That's 800year old ice you are looking at.
So much ice for ice-kacang/shaved ice.

My SLR is not always the best at capturing photos in dim lightings, like when I was taking pictures of the northern lights.
So I was beyond thrill when I saw the results of the shots because they captured most of the beauty in the ice caves.
The rest, of course, comes from actually being there and let mother nature touch your heart.

I doubt I will ever see an ice cave as beautiful as those in Iceland.
I have a trip to another ice cave sometime soon and even then, I know it will never be comparable to this.

 These are all natural lightings.
The ice is actually blue-ish, because it is so densely formed from the 800 years worth of ice and snow sitting on top of it.
All it took was to leave my shutter on for a long time to enable my camera to absorb as much light as possible.

 It is also super clear!
You could see the black dusts, which are volcanic ash, and bubbles.

Did some really fun shots in the ice cave.
Right after I was done with it, couple others followed suit and took the spot I was crouching at to get the same effect.
#trendsetter lol

I visited Vatnajokull's ice caves. On Iceland's map, you'll see a couple of blobs labelled ----jokull. -jokull means glacier. Glaciers are extremely big ice bergs. Vatnajokull covers 8% of Iceland, is about 60-70km in diameter and is the biggest glacier in Europe. In the summer, glaciers melt a lot and form rivers. These rivers flow right between the glacier's ice and in the winter, when the ice melts less, leaves a big hole where the river used to be. The holes are ice caves. Those in Vatnajokull are completely natural (there are man-made ones which are less magnificent). Ice caves could only be visited in the winter between November-March. After, they will be too dangerous as the glacier's ice may collapse on the cave. Mind you, glaciers are few hundred meters in thickness. It is so heavy that Iceland floats up 1 1/2 cm per year due to weight loss as glaciers melt. So with the rising sea levels, everyone should run to Iceland, the only country keeping up with the sea levels.

Few years ago, this place had a glacier sitting on it.

Glaciers grow as well due to the yearly snow fall. However, they melt faster than they grow. In the last 100years, Vatnajokull has melted back 7km from the coast line. My guide told me that 100 years ago, his grandfather was walking on glaciers that melted away today. Give it another few hundred years, they'll be ice cubes in your drink. 

My guide was from a small farm in Hali. His whole family since his grandmother basically lives there. He was extremely dedicated to conserving the glacier. I was so touched when he picked up a rouge cigarette bud from the ground while hiking up to the glacier. It is always inspiring when passion shows. The glacier was basically what he shared with his grandfather and father.

I found a video of glacier calving and basically explains my ice cave guide's fascination and fear (of its 'survival') for the glacier.

Upworthy link: Glacier Calving

I believe I have must more experiences to come.
Yet I believe this will be on the top of my list for wildest encounter with nature.

The tour I took gathers at a small town, Hali.
This town basically consists of a family farm and a restaurant cum museum.


It's a building of big hard-cover books, no way can you miss this while driving on the Ring Road.