An exciting hike on Svínafellsjökull Glacier with an expert glacier guide. Experience the power of the glacier and the great natural forces which shaped it. This mind-blowing but easy hike on real ice crampons is a fabulous glacier tour – an ultimate experience you should not miss out on!

This tour takes you safely among the crevasses and glacier sculptures of Svínafellsjökull glacial tongue in Skaftafell nature reserve. You’ll be totally surrounded by the majestic scenery and experience the power of the living glacier. It’s a fairly easy to moderate walk with real ice crampons attached to your hiking boots.

This glacier tongue is an outlet of the immense Glacier Vatnajökull, and the ice is 1,000 years old. Glaciers are made up of fallen snow. They are not frozen water, as some might think. But how does it turn into ice then? Simply by compression due to the weight of the snow as it keeps accumulating. It’s just like taking a handful of fluffy snow and squeezing into a hard snowball, and keep doing so for hundreds of years. The ice eventually gets so compressed that most of the air is forced out of it. This is what causes glacial ice to appear blue.A glacier is a river of ice. It flows. That’s because the highly compressed layers of ice are very flexible. At locations where a glacier flows rapidly, giant cracks called crevasses are formed. This is why it’s so dangerous to walk on a glacier – the crevasses get sometimes covered over by snow. Your guide may show you with the ice axe spots that may look like solid ice and snow but are in fact a steep drop just covered in a light dusting of snow.

DURATION
2.5 hours / 1-1,5 hours on ice

What’s included?
Guiding services, glacier gear and safety equipment (ice crampons, ice axe, helmets).

What do I need to bring?
Waterproof warm clothing, and hiking boots (hiking boots may be rented from us).

Minimum age of passengers is: 10