Anyone not see the photos?

Photos are online here!

This is probably due an update!

Hi everyone!

It's been super-hectic since our return from Iceland. Hopefully word has spread about what happened to most people, but for those who are still curious, please see the below piece which I've submitted to my old school for inclusion in their termly magazine:

"As the plane started its descent towards Keflavik airport and the barren rocky expanse of Iceland’s south-west coast came into view, my friend Jim came out of his reverie and said, “This just got real.”

6 months of organising, route-planning, testing different items of kit, negotiating with airlines, fundraising, and sending reassurances to our parents had led up to this point, and our plans were at last coming to fruition. It had been March when the idea struck – “Why not cross Iceland, by foot, unsupported, and in winter?” I had dared to propose.

Now, with £3,500 raised for Macmillan Cancer Support, and 75kg of luggage in the hold, we were finally touching down on Icelandic soil. By the following day we were on the north side of Iceland, at our start point in Akureyri, and making the final preparations for our 300km trek from the north coast to the south coast. The first few steps were possibly the hardest of the whole journey as we struggled to find the blind courage to begin our 3-week journey towards and through the deserted Icelandic highlands – a land of snow, rock, and ice, where the wind blows at hurricane speeds, and where the weather changes from sunshine to blizzard without any chance to react.

As the days passed we noticed an increase in our pace as we started to get used to the loads on our backs and mentally adjusted to the task at hand: one in foot in front of the other, repeat until tired, and repeat some more after that. The snow-covered mountains to either side of me brought back vivid memories of my first hiking experience – it had been on a Tanglin school trip to Nepal back in ’00, when we spent several days meandering through the Annapurna foothills. Those memories have stayed with me ever since and I believe has been the inspiration behind many of my outdoor adventures. I was happy to be in such glorious surroundings, despite the cold, and the days started to go by more easily.

Halfway through our third day we found ourselves passing our first milestone: the last farm in the valley, the last sign of civilisation we were due to see until we reached the south coast a couple of weeks and some 240km later. An hour later that too was gone, obscured behind a snowy outstretched spur as the valley began to twist and turn and the ground became more treacherous. It wasn’t long before we were wading through waist deep snowfields and watching anxiously as refrigerator-sized boulders toppled down the slopes to our left and right; any illusions of monotony were now fully dispelled.

It was even deeper into the same valley when our first real Icelandic storm hit us. In moments we were frantically trying to pitch our tent, hammering pegs and ice axes into the ground only to watch the force of the wind rip them up again seconds later. The tent poles bowed and collapsed, and the tent was crushed into the ground. After an hour of struggle we were able to erect some kind of shelter, but the continuing and restless squalls would not let us sleep for the rest of that night.

We stayed put for 2 days before burying our pride and ambition and making our decision to turn back, just 1/3 of the way into our hike. Walking back out of the valley, we were swooped by a small plane, and later found out that the local mountain rescue services were on the lookout, having just recovered the body of an unfortunate hiker not 10 miles from where we were. The lesson for us was clear: all the ambition and pride in the world are little without prudence.

..."

Thanks all!
- Ed

And we're off!

See you all at the end of the month :)

Take a look at Iceland with online webcams

Obviously Jim and I are anxious to keep an eye on the weather in Iceland. One of the tools we are using to check out how the snow cover and general day-to-day weather will be is a great system of online webcams - the best site we've found is: http://www.vegagerdin.is/umferd-og-faerd/vefmyndavelar/nordurland

Below is a typical shot from the roads in the north of Iceland:

Berghaus Adventure Challenge!

Iceland Highs and Lows has been nominated as a candidate for the Berghaus Adventure Challenge! The winning expedition gets a very handy £2,000 in sponsorship - and voting closes this Friday!

Please register and help us out, and remember that our expedition is ultimately to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, so your vote and any donations will always be going to a good cause. The Berghaus competition is at http://www.berghaus.com/en/adventure-challenge/shortlists

Registration is free and takes about 30 seconds. You won't get spammed and your details won't be sold on - it's just so they can ensure fair voting.

Temperatures starting to fall in Iceland...

Here is the overnight forecast for next Sunday night, courtesy of the Icelandic Met Office's fantastic website (http://en.vedur.is):

A few more weeks to go and it will only be getting colder!

Flights are booked!

We've officially booked our flights to Reykjavik with Icelandair. Jim is back in the UK in a matter of days, and from then it's a short 4 weeks until November 5th and the beginning of our expedition!

Training in the Lake District

With Jim still away in lands afar, Ed set off into the Lake District last weekend for a part training-hike and part weekend-getaway...

It was really great to get out into the hills and do some serious walking again! I took a lot of extra weight with me that I wouldn't really need for the weekend because I wanted to make sure I would be happy carrying a pack of similar weight to the ones Jim and I will be lugging across Iceland. Most of my time was spent near Borrowdale and in quite a short space of time I was able to climb a few of the large hills in the area (including the uncompromisingly steep Great Gable at 899m) and do a fair amount of scrambling - essential things to practice for part of our journey across Iceland! Just before the Vatnajokull ice cap we will be crossing what appears on the map to be a mountain range (by British standard anyway). The only defined route skirts around the outside but it will add many days onto our journey following it, so we are planning to take the "shortcut" - straight over the top!

For anyone interested, you can check out the photos in Ed's Picasa gallery at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/113419761180934624957/LakeDistrictJul

(Yes that is sticky toffee pudding!)

Jim has been and gone!

It's been a busy 6 weeks since the last update. Lots of research done on what gear to take, some more posters put up, and some more research done our route. Jim returned for his R&R for a couple of weeks and we managed to squeeze some time in to go on a camping and climbing road trip of sorts up and down the country.

Over the next few weeks we're going to be really looking at getting some sponsors on side to try and subsidise some of the gear costs. If anyone has any recommendations of where to look please let us know! 

Following that we're going to go on a big fundraising push to try and get closer to our target of £10,000. We'd once again like to give a massive thank you to all those that have donated so far and helped us get things underway. It's seriously a case of "every little helps" and we are very grateful to everyone! 

Maps have arrived!

I've had a call from Stanfords letting me know that the Iceland maps I requested sometime at the start of April have finally come in and are on hold! With any luck I shall be collecting them this weekend. We've asked for the most detailed mapsheets of the areas we're walking through, but because of the limited number of surveys in Iceland the best available is still only 1:100,000. Hardly ideal for walking!

Published in Tanglin Newsletter

We're delighted to announce that Ed's former school in Singapore, Tanglin Trust School, have very kindly written an article about our expedition in their weekly newsletter, TTS In Touch. We'd like to extend our thanks to the staff at Tanglin Trust School who have been very helpful and supportive!

We're working on some publicity ideas to follow up on this and also always on the lookout for potential sponsors. Hopefully there will be more news to add here very shortly, but in the meantime, if you have any suggestions then please get in touch!

Birthdays and Donations

As some of you reading may well know, Jim and I have both had our birthdays in the past two weeks, turning 25 and 24 respectively. We'd like to thank everyone that sent birthday wishes, particularly those that took the time to wish Jim a happy birthday in Afghanistan.

I'm delighted to announce that we were able to to use this as a reason to get people's attention and do some fundraising, bringing more donations in and getting us to a very healthy 4% towards our target, with many months to go.

Please do keep the donations coming in - the easiest way to donate is at our JustGiving page. We've got some big publicity plans lined up over the next few weeks, so keep checking back for more info on what's going on!

Training Ideas

As the first few donations have started to come in, the reality of this expedition is setting in. There's no doubting that the combined 280 km hike and mountain climb will require a certain amount of fitness, so we've been trying to come up with a few ideas on what to do in the time leading up to the expedition - ideally sporting events that are both a challenge to train for and present an opportunity for marketing our expedition and doing some fundraising.

The first idea on the cards is that Ed will participate in the Rab Mountain Marathon in September. He's never run a marathon or a mountain marathon before, so it should be an interesting experience. It would be great to take a small team of runners out to the hills, so if anyone has any interest in running with Ed, please let us know in the comments or through emails. If you have any other ideas for similar events that we could get involved in, please send those in too!

Finally we'd also like to say a big thank you to those that have donated so far! It's still a long way to go until we reach our target, but every donation is a step on the way and they are all very appreciated.

First donation is in!

We have received our first donation over our JustGiving web page! Please keep these rolling in, and remember that through Gift Aid, HMRC will automatically contribute an additional 25% (or thereabouts) to your donation!

We would like to extend our thanks to all those that have helped and contributed so far. If anyone is interested in helping with promoting our expedition, helping obtain sponsorship, or simply wishing us luck then please leave a comment or email us at icelandhighsandlows -AT- gmail.com

A little bit more about us...

Jim is 24, rapidly approaching 25. He is currently serving with the Royal Artillery in Afghanistan during his 4th year of service with the Territorial Army. He grew up in London and enjoys rock climbing, parkour, making cheese-on-toast for Ed when he's far too drunk to do it for himself. He's on the right hand side of the photo, which was taken in Iceland in April 2010, a few days before a major eruption at Eyjafjallajökull covered the area in ash.

Ed, shown next to the tent with his spork in his mouth, is 23, and grew up in Berlin and in Singapore. He's also a keen climber, and enjoys eating cheese-on-toast made for him by others. He spent 3 years with the Territorial Army, and over a year training to be a Royal Marines Officer. When he's not at work in the Jack Wills head office in London, he is usually found either rock climbing, training, or planning for the Iceland expedition. 


To see more of our previous exploits in Iceland, click here.

Any Questions?

Want to know more about our plans? Want to know more about us or about Macmillan Cancer Support? Or simply want to tell us we are crazy?

For any and all queries, tips, and evaluations of sanity please either leave a comment on our blog or send us an email on: icelandhighsandlows - AT- gmail.com

Please remember to visit our JustGiving page to donate!

What is Iceland - Highs and Lows?

It's hiking 280 kilometres. It's climbing a mountain. It's crossing a country.

Highs and Lows is the name we've given to an expedition we are planning, with the aim of raising money for the fantastic charity, Macmillan Cancer Support. Things are very much in the early planning stages at the moment, but what we do know is that we are going to hike from the north coast of Iceland to the south coast, and make a slight detour along the way to summit Hvannadalshnúkur, Iceland's tallest mountain.

We've called it Highs and Lows because we'll start at sea level, cross the Icelandic highlands, summit the country's highest point, and then return to sea level at the finish. As well as the altitudinal changes, we expect our journey of several weeks to take us through some emotional highs and lows as well, as we fully expect to be battered by storms, blasted by Iceland's harsh winds, rained on continuously, and be thoroughly worn out by the end.