First you will meet your guide in the Sólheimajökull parking lot and get all necessary equipment for the hike: crampons, ice axes, harnesses and helmets. Then you will hike for about 15 minutes to the ice itself to get the blood flowing and warm up for the hike.

You will stay 60 to 90 minutes on the ice itself and see lots of crevasses, deep cracks in the surface of the glacier, and so called moulins, often vertical shafts in the ice which are formed by melting water finding it’s way into fissures and cracks. In the beginning of the walk you will be aware of lots of ash on the ice. Since we have volcanos under every glacier in Iceland it is common that eruptions leave big amounts of volcanic deposit right on the glacier. This ash is shaping the landscape of the glacier.

Your guide will introduce you in detail to the history of the glacier and tell you how the ice is formed on top of the mountains and how global warming is affecting the melting of this glacial outlet. It is featured in detail in the 2012 documentary Chasing Ice, an award-winning investigation of climate change.