Langjökull glacial cave

LangjökullNext up was the glacial cave at Langjökull. For those of you who don’t know, and that would include me before today, a glacial cave is a cave that is inside a glacier, while an ice cave is merely a cave with ice in it. So today, not only did we drive over a glacier, we walked inside it.

Langjökull
This is the first cave we entered. As an example of how small Iceland is, we ran into someone we knew there.

Langjökull
I really just wanted a picture of the undulating ceiling, but without the people you get no sense of scale.

Langjökull
I wish I could make you understand how much it looked like blue marble. The striations are year marks, apparently. The thick dark ones are from eruptions, but the rest are sediment that collected during the summer.

Langjökull
We’re up close to the top of the cave here.

Langjökull
After that, we hiked over to the cave next door. Again, there’s no sense of scale. See that little opening in the back? Check the next picture where Rob is at the upper end of the cave, past the opening.

Langjökull

Langjökull

 

Our guide had brought at shovel with him and made mini-steps up into the cave, which we needed since we were walking on snow covered ice. When we finished looking around, we walked back down to a safe location and sat down in our snow suits for a ride down what must be the world’s largest natural outdoor slide.

Did you know you can support Mary Robinette on Patreon?
Become a patron at Patreon!

2 thoughts on “Langjökull glacial cave”

  1. Wow, those look like incredible places to visit. I’m adding Iceland to my list of places to see someday before or after I die.

  2. Mary Robinette Kowal

    It is awe-inspiring but I trust you’ll have more interesting places to go after you die.

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top