Exploring Þórsmörk with Midgard Adventure’s Super Jeep Tour
Just before 7:45 a.m. I’m standing outside Hagkaup, shaking hands with Ragnar “Raggi” Jónsson, the guide who’ll be taking me into Þórsmörk for the day. We make a quick stop in Selfoss — tebolla and coffee, plus a photographer joining us — before heading south to base camp.
Midgard Adventure was founded just a week before the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, and it’s been woven into the fabric of Hvolsvöllur ever since. At the base camp I meet CEO Björg and her daughter-in-law Hildur, who runs the place day to day. It’s part hotel, part hostel, and something of a community hub — concerts happen here, rhubarb grows out back, and a set of swings inside gives the whole operation a slightly unexpected charm.
Belly of the Beast
“Here, everyone starts off as strangers, but by the end of the day, we’re all buddies,” Raggi says as we push further into Þórsmörk. An hour or two ago I was in Reykjavik traffic; now there are glaciers crowding the skyline and rivers threading through the valley floor. “This place is so dramatic,” Raggi adds, probably reading my face. He offers two theories on the name: one has Þór himself shaping the land, Mjölnir in hand, while the other points to the thunder and lightning that roll through the sheltered valley with surprising regularity.
Our first proper stop is a two-hour trek into what Raggi calls the “Dragon’s Lair.” We ford a string of streams on the way to a cave, and at one point he pauses and says, “So much here feels ancient, even if it has changed recently.” That observation turns out to be a thread running through the whole day. “That rock wasn’t here last weekend,” he’ll say later, or “That mountain was entirely covered in snow!” The landscape genuinely shifts between visits.
Grandma Knows Best
Hopping between stones, Raggi passes on a piece of advice from his grandmother: “Better wet feet than a bloody head!” We laugh, then promptly step straight into the water. It’s easier going and, honestly, she had a point.
The cave itself is worth every wet sock. Mossy green walls, dark basalt, and a perfect circle of blue sky open above you. “Every time I see this, I’m in awe,” Raggi admits. Earlier in the day he’d told a group from New York City to stop looking and start listening — so I try it. Birds, a waterfall, water tapping against stone. It works. We fill our bottles from a spring inside and head back to the Super Jeep.
Troubled Taxi
Lunch is at Skagfjörðsskáli — hot dogs, Appelsín, and Hraun. The owners are out enjoying the sun while Raggi catches up with other guides and the hikers passing through. I’ve wanted to do the Fimmvörðuháls hike for years, so when I find out Midgard Adventure runs it every Thursday through summer, I start mentally rearranging my calendar over a second hot dog.
Between bites, Raggi explains the tour approach. “There’s no such thing as a standard tour,” he says. “You could have a family dressed in jeans or Austrians decked out in Gore-Tex.” While we’re talking, a truck makes a go at crossing the river nearby. Raggi grins and tells me about a Tesla taxi that tried the same crossing just the day before. It apparently made it, but watching that truck, I’d still put my money on an experienced driver in a Super Jeep.
The Tearjerker
The last two stops shift the mood. First is Gígjökull — the glacier still dusted in ash, and the cold coming off it is immediate and sharp. Raggi has a word for it: “jökulkoss,” glacier kiss.
Then we pull onto a windswept black sand beach. “I call this spot ‘the tearjerker,'” Raggi says, explaining that a middle-aged American woman cries here more often than you’d think. He floors it, turns up Sigur Rós’s “Untitled #3 – Samskeyti,” and we tear across the sand with glaciers on one side and the open ocean on the other. There is, I’ll admit, a lump in my throat.
By the time the song ends and we’re back on the road, the farms are rolling past in the low evening light. Raggi had warned me that people often fall asleep on this stretch. Eyes closing, Þórsmörk still running through my head, I didn’t put up much of a fight.
Midgard Adventure’s Base Camp is located in Hvolsvöllur, and you can book their Super Jeep tours at https://midgardbasecamp.is/
