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Later, after 250 miles of highway wobbling, we overnight in a hut at the foot of Vatnajokull in the company of a trio of snowmobilers, the Icelandic crew preparing for the journey ahead and other travellers saying quiet prayers for a safe return. I decide to make friends with Chef, who has all the food. The next day we fire up the engines and crawl towards the first rise of the glacier, bright-eyed and full of adventure for the 50-mile, eight-hour drive to the hut at the top. Four hours later, we have travelled a mile, and I want to go home. |
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The snow simply isn’t hard enough to support even our adapted trucks. The theory is the same as driving on sand. You have your tyres at a very low pressure and ‘float’ along the surface. Once rolling, you must maintain momentum without crashing back through; if you do, you will inevitably get stuck. This involves lots of rocking, reverse to first, first to reverse, to get the car back up on the crust. Incredible gearing helps, with super-low ratios turning the axles one click a time, like a clockwork ratchet.
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When you get stuck, you either retreat back down your own tracks and start again, or choose a different route. Every move has to be planned ahead, always aiming for the line of least resistance, the gentlest gradient or the hardest snow. Keeping going is all – no point blasting to the brow of a hill if you have to retreat back down it again to cover the last 100 yards. Every six feet, we have to rock the trucks gently back and forth to try to float them back onto that slightly harder top surface. Up, forward six feet, then down again into the fluff, to be dug free. Again. And again, and again. At first it’s all part of the challenge, but gung-ho spirit soon gives way to boredom and then frustration. Then the weather closes in like a pale fist and frustration gives way to resignation. This is going to take a very, very long time.
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There’s ice inside the windows and the air filter keeps getting blocked with snow. There’s a blizzard outside that has been blowing for 12 hours straight, obliterating every reference point, like being trapped in a particularly aggressive, freezing cold, giant cotton-wool ball. We’re 20 miles up a mountain in a three-tonne truck and it’s four in the morning. We’re also running out of diesel. Yet still the Icelanders refuse to give up. I’m really not having fun any more.
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