Hiking Across ICELAND with my Teenage Son

For many years I'd dreamed of traversing Iceland. One night while watching the Icelandic volcanic eruptions on YouTube, I asked my teenage son "Do you want to hike across Iceland with me?" His response was "Hell yea!"

So over the next 7 months, I trained him up by running and hiking with progressively heavier packs, eventually taking multiday trips in the North Cascades to get him used to carrying a heavy pack for hours on end and the harsh conditions of the mountain environment.

The route would be tough: 200 miles on foot over 14 days from Skogar to Akureyri with minimal resupply. I wasn't sure he'd be able to do it, so I had a backup plan: bail out at Landmannalaugar (or sooner), hitchhike back to Reykjavik, and spend the rest of the trip driving around the island in a camper van (or something like that). But this kid was tougher than I thought...

Some advice for those seeking to hike across Iceland:

1. Generally speaking, a North-South route is easier than an East-West route because there are fewer glaciers and river crossings in the way, as well as more campgrounds and potential resupplies. That being said, a strong hiker with experience doing long carries should not have a problem either way provided they're prepared for high winds, wet weather, and very cold river crossings.

2. The Fimmvörðuháls trail does have brief but significant exposure between the Fimmvörðuháls hut and Þórsmörk (pronounced "Thors merk"). It consists of about 100 feet of thin trail on a shear cliff with a chain/steel cable to hold onto. Don't slip or let go, or else you'll die. Had I known this before hand, I might have skipped this section as my son had never done anything like this. But, as he often does, he surprised me with his composure and strength.

3. You can buy hot food in Þórsmörk, Landmannalaugar...but it's really expensive, so prepare yourself for sticker shock. In fact, everything in Iceland is about 2-3x as expensive as in the U.S.

4. You can resupply in Landmannalaugar, but you'll have to pay about $70-80 to a private company to take the package in either Reykjavik or Hella and deliver it to the main office in Landmannalaugar. Contrary to what I was told before the trip, they will accept and store resupply boxes in the main office there.

5. On a North-South route, the only resupply possibilities after Landmannalaugar are Nýidalur Hut and Laugafell Hut, both of which sell very expensive chocolate, chips, and freeze dried food. The price I was quoted to deliver a resupply box to Nýidalur Hut was around $1000, so it was obviously much cheaper to buy food.

6. While the trail is crowded, just about everyone we interacted with was pleasant and friendly, so feel free to talk to people and make friends, which is probably the best part of hiking.