Not an every day glacier Walk on Sólheimajökull glacier

16.7.2010 Steinar Mar Asgrimsson

Usually it is not considered news worthy when we at Icelandic Mountain Guides take groups walking on Sólheimajökull glacier or any other glacier - We do that nearly every day of the year. But when the group only consists of blind people taking a stroll with us on the slippery blue ice - it surely gets noticed.

Information concerning the area around Þórsmörk (Thorsmörk ) and Fimmvörðuháls.

15.6.2010 Steinar Mar Asgrimsson

Current conditions allow us to run all our tours in the area of Emstrur, Þórsmörk and over Fimmvörðuháls. However we want to inform participants of the following:

Reaching Hvannadalshnúkur - Iceland's highest peak

7.6.2010 Steinar Mar Asgrimsson

On the 29th of May about 130 brave souls reached the top of Hvannadalshnúkur - the highest peak in Iceland. The weather was fantastic, sunny and clear sky as people rejoiced their successful ascension and enjoyed the magnificent view from the top. This was the final chapter in a training program called Reach the Top, organized by Icleandi Mountain Guides in collaboration with 66 North

Campaign introducing Iceland to the world launched today

3.6.2010 Steinar Mar Asgrimsson

Today a campaign called Inspired by Iceland promoting Iceland and all of its options for tourists launched its first viral advertisement. Icelanders all over were given the task, sending friends and families abroad videos, stories, e-cards and links from the site. It has been a great success, as of now over 1.6 million messages have ben sent!

The Eyjafjallajökull Eruption has ended

28.5.2010 Steinar

The volcanic eruption under the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier has ended and no activity has been visible for a few days now. This is great news for the farmers around the volcano that have had to endure considerable ash fall on their fields. Tourism in Iceland has experienced some shifts during the eruption. Flights throughout Europe were in some distress at the beginning of the eruption even though the airports in Iceland stayed open nearly without a glitch. Because of this disruption Iceland had slightly fewer travellers than otherwise expected at this time of year. Those who were here were of course very interested in the eruption, so many new tours had to be created for us to show off our eruption.

Icelandic Mountain Guides' tours are on schedule after the eruption

14.5.2010 Steinar

All Icelandic Mountain Guides' tours are on schedule and we have a new eruption tour.

The eruption in the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier has stabilized down to only a small portion of its former strength. The glacier around the eruption has melted so the risk of floods from the eruption is over and the ash fall is limited to a small area around the eruption. As a result of this the inhabited area around the volcano, including all of Icelandic Mountain Guides' operation area, has been designated safe. Our glacier walks on the nearby Sólheimajökull glacier are therefor all back on schedule, with the added bonus of seeing the eruption on the way in good visibility. Driving through the area where the ash fall has been is quite a sight, many of the formerly green pastures have been blanketed by centimeters of volcanic ash. The eruption and the ash fall areas are visible on our day tours Walk Through Ice and Fire and Take a Walk on The Ice Side.

Icelandic Mountain Guides' tours are on schedule after the eruption

7.5.2010 Steinar

Updated 28th of April 2010 All Icelandic Mountain Guides' tours are on schedule. The eruption in the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier has stabilized down to only a small portion of its former strength.

Iceland Eruption affects on Icelandic Mountain Guides' Overnight Tours

19.4.2010 Steinar

All Icelandic Mountain Guides' tours are on schedule.

The eruption in the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier has stabilized down to only a small portion of its former strength. The glacier around the eruption has melted so the risk of floods from the eruption is over and the ash fall is limited to a small area around the eruption. As a result of this the inhabited area around the volcano, including all of Icelandic Mountain Guides' operation area, has been designated safe. Our glacier walks on the nearby Sólheimajökull glacier are therefor all back on schedule, with the added bonus of seeing the eruption on the way in good visibility.

Iceland Eruption affects on Icelandic Mountain Guides' Day Tours

14.4.2010 Steinar

The eruption in the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier has stabilized down to only a small portion of its former strength. The glacier around the eruption has melted so the risk of floods from the eruption is over and the ash fall is limited to a small area around the eruption. As a result of this the inhabited area around the volcano, including all of Icelandic Mountain Guides' operation area, has been designated safe. Our glacier walks on the nearby Sólheimajökull glacier are therefor all back on schedule, with the added bonus of seeing the eruption on the way in good visibility.

Top Gear drives to the top of an Erupting Volcano in Iceland

8.4.2010 Steinar

The famous British TV show, Top Gear is in Iceland filming an episode at the eruption up on Fimmvörðuháls. As you may have read in recent articles from Icelandic Mountain Guides there is an eruption going on in Iceland at the moment. The eruption has caught attention worldwide and now most recently the attention of the Top Gear crew.

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Eruption tours

29.3.2010 Steinar

The Eyjafjallajökull Glacier erupted on the 20th of March 2010 and is still going. The glacier last erupted in the year 1821-1823 in an eruption that lasted nearly two years. This eruption is not thought to cause any danger to nearby farms and towns as it is relatively stable and in a remote spot on the Fimmvörðuháls col. The Fimmvörðuháls col itself has not erupted for around 10.000 years, so the fresh new lava fields really stand out of the landscape.

Eyjafjallajokull Volcano Erupts in Iceland

23.3.2010 Steinar

Eyjafjallajökull Glacier, one of Iceland's mightiest volcanoes, began erupting soon after midnight on March the 20th. This is the first time the volcano erupts since 1821-1823. This eruption has many of the same characteristics as the last eruption, it is a stable eruption with a small lava flow. Whether or not the eruption goes on for nearly two years as the past eruption did only time will tell. Luckily the eruption is not underneath the glacier itself, but just off to the side of the ice field. This avoids the glacial meltwater floods that otherwise might cause trouble in the farmlands below the glacier as happened in the eighteen hundreds.

Michael Grocott

19.3.2010 Steinar

66° North and FÍFL (Icelandic Mountain Doctors) held an excellent conference at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica Hotel for the Summit with 66°North and Icelandic Mountain Guides Program. The conference hall was near full with close to 300 people. The main speaker at the conference was Michael Grocott Intensive Care Doctor and High Altitude Mountaineer. Michael Grocott has ascended many high mountains such as Everest (8.850m) and Cho Oyu (8.201m).

Skaftafell

2.3.2010 Steinar

Skaftafell is one of the must see destinations in Iceland. Skaftafell is a beautifull mountaineous region in the south of Iceland on the southern edge of the mighty Vatnajökull Glacier. The old Skaftafell National park is nearly 5.000 km² but is since 2008 the epicenter of the largest National Park in Europe, Vatnajökull National Park, covering 12.000 km2.

Icelandic Mountain Guides receives recognition

26.2.2010 Steinar

SAF, the Icelandic Travel Industry Association, but this is the third time they are awarded. IMG is extremely proud and honoured and look at this as an encouragement for keeping up the good work when it comes to maintaining our guides skills and knowledge.
Icelandic Mountain Guides set high standars when it comes to the training and certification of our guides and we provide them with reglular training courses. We train them according to the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association's standards. Information about the training and it's various levels can be read at the NZMGA website.

Icelandic Mountain Guides win victories in New Zealand

26.1.2010 Steinar

Icelandic Mountain Guides instituted a new standards system for rating our guides skills a couple of years ago. Our guides are now rated every year by a New Zealand Mountain Guide in compliance with the New Zealand Mountain Guide Association's standards. This has opened up new job opportunities for our guides and two of them went off to New Zealand this winter to guide on Fox Glacier.

Vatnajökull Glacier Cross Country Ski Expedition featured in SkiMagazin

11.1.2010 Steinar

The Vatnajökull Glacier Expedition a 9 day tour on Cross Country Skis is featured this month in the popular German magazine SkiMagazin. Journalist Gunter Kast joined us on our last expedition and wrote a 5 page article about his experience on the glacier.

Cross country skiing in Landmannalaugar

6.1.2010 Steinar

In February Icelandic Mountain Guides is offering a fabulous 6-day cross country ski tour in Landmannalaugar, Landmannalaugar in Winter (IMG53). There, nature offers striking contrasts and incredibly diverse volcanic landscapes: craters, lava fields and snow filled gorges and canyons where thick steam curls burst our of the entrails of Earth.

Iceland is a hot deal right now!

5.12.2009 Steinar

Iceland is gaining an increased interest amongst travelers, who are recognizing that this island in the North-Atlantic isn’t so cold despite its name. The economic crash in 2008, and the Icelandic currency’s free fall, has drawn a deserved attention to Iceland and its various offerings.

Tourism-Review.com covers Icelandic Mountain Guides

2.12.2009 Steinar

Tourism-Review.com is an on-line resource for travel industry professionals worldwide. It's channels are it's website and an Online Tourism Magazine. This month Icelandic Mountain Guides are covered in their review of Iceland. In their review they take on the many aspects Iceland, it's nature and it's tour companies have to offer.

Sky Travel joins us on Walk on the Ice Side

24.11.2009 Steinar

Kirsty Brown of Sky Travel came and had fun on the ice with Björgvin from Icelandic Mountain Guides during the Iceland Airwaves music festival. The tour Kirsty chose is one of our most popular glacier tours, Walk on the Ice Side.

Have a look at Kirsty's article on Sky it includes a nice video she took.

Icelandic Mountain Guides awarded with environmental award

19.11.2009 Steinar

We are proud to announce that Icelandic Mountain Guides has been awarded the Icelandic Tourist Board's Environmental Prize for the year 2009. This is the fifteenth annual prize awarded to a company or an institution that is considered to have done a great job with environmental matters that year.

This year, Icelandic Mountain Guides received the prize, mainly due to its goal-oriented environmental policy that aims towards the sustainability of the company's activities, and for its ambition to preserve the fragile nature of the North with the coming generations' interests in mind.

Reykjavik Grapevine Article about Walk on the Ice Side

13.11.2009 Steinar

The Reykjavik Grapevine is the leading newspaper in English in Iceland. It is aimed both at foreigners living in Iceland and tourists who want a window into local events. In the latest copy, a journalist from The Grapevine goes along on the "Walk on the Ice Side" glacier day tour with Icelandic Mountain Guides.

Times and Now write about Icelandic Mountain Guides and Iceland Airwaves

28.10.2009 Steinar

The Iceland Airwaves music festival was held in Reykjavík the 14th to 18th of October. A number of the guests chose to "Take a Walk on the Ice Side" with Icelandic Mountain Guides to get a blast of fresh glacial air between the music events. The music fans chose diverse tours, ranging from easy Glacier Walks and Hot-Spring baths to Glacier Ice Climbing.

Icelandic Mountain Guides nominated for environmental award

11.8.2009 Steinar

We proudly announce that Icelandic Mountain Guides have been nominated for Icelandic Tourist Board's annual environmental award.

The purpose of the award is to draw attention to tourist places or tourism agents that take care of environmental matters and involve them in future plans and strategies. The award is seen as an encouragement to travel- and tourism agents and their customers, so that they will become more aware of the environment and nature. The award will be awarded on the 19th of November 2009, but they have been awarded annually since 1995.

Rabbi Shmuley and family with IMG-Guides

3.7.2009 Steinar

There is no such thing as a soft onset when Rabbi Shmuley wants to introduce his children to the raw elements of nature.

Rabbi's recommendation to reject material greed from kids so they become weened off materialism and shopping malls addiction is to immerse them in nature at least once a year.

With this in mind he dropped by in Skaftafell National Park for an unforgettable Glacier Adventure.

Still there but vanishing rapidly

10.6.2009 Steinar

The glaciers are still there for you to visit but vanishing rapidly as the following EIS-video shows dramatically.

"The Extreme Ice Survey is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography. EIS uses time-lapse photography, conventional photography, and video to document the rapid changes now occurring on the Earth's glacial ice. The EIS team has installed 27 time-lapse cameras at 15 sites in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains."

The following video footage shows the dramatic changes in Sólheimajökull 26th of Mars 2007 - 27th of February 2009

Lonely Planet picks Iceland as Best Value destination 2010

11.5.2009 Steinar

Lonely Planet, the world's leading publisher in travel guides, has picked Icelandas the best value destination in the world to visit in the coming year in a new book published this week. Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010 captures the world’s hottest travel trends, destinations, journeys and experiences for the year ahead, bringing together the expertise of Lonely Planet authors, staff and travellers and is an eagerly-awaited annual collection of the best places to go and the best things to do around the world for the year ahead.

Walk on Ice and through the glacier tunnel

2.2.2009 Steinar

Earlier this winter when glacier guide Ivar Finnbogason was leading a group on our most popular day tour "Take a walk on the ice side - IMG01" he found some spectacular ice sculptures and an Ice cave or tunnel. This was like just another Take a walk on the ice side - hike but since the weather was so good he decided to take a short detour where he found the beautiful ice cave. Ivar has checked the cave thoroughly and states that it is safe to enter and that it will probably last till the beginning of the summer season.

Sólheimajökull glacier - Video footage

28.11.2008 Steinar

Matthew J. Roberts, glaciologist at the National Meteorological Office in Reykjavik, was interviewed at the tip of Sólheimajökull glacier by NBC Today. There he explains how fast global warming has affected the glaciers: “It been really tremendous changes all around us. It´s really as a type site for glacier retreat in Iceland and in fact globally.“ And litle later in the interview “This is the sight of ice melting in action. Water flowing around the glacier edge. This wallay glacier is retreating exceptionally rapidly ... in fact at the equvalent of a footballfield annually.“

A beautiful day on the glacier saw over 70 people

24.11.2008 Steinar

Yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day on the Sólheimajökull glacier. Even though some winds had been forecasted during the day, the great mountains surrounding the valley proved a perfect shelter for the wind. In this terrific weather the glacier showed its hidden treasure to more than 70 interested adventure travellers; the beautiful deep blue crystal-like appearance.

Easy booking and better navigation with new web

21.11.2008 Steinar

If you are a frequent visitor to our site you must have noted the changes we did on the web tree some three day‘s ago. If you ara a newcomer ... we welcome you!

An unexpected opportunity

20.10.2008 Steinar

After being known to many as one of the most expensive destination in Northern Europe Iceland became one of the most affordable destinations overnight.

This means not only the beer is cheaper but also everything Iceland is best known for i.e. pristine nature and adventure comparable to none.

Now when its about 40 per cent cheaper to stay in one of the top hotels in Reykjavik it is much more appealing for visitors to do something they'll never forget.

Mel Gibson glacier in Skaftafell

8.8.2008 Steinar

Our mountain guides in Skaftafell – now a part of the bigger National park Vatnajökull – have been far too busy guiding people to the beautiful glacier toung given no extra time to follow up in the media on the riche and famous.

It was therefore a big surprise when one of the greater movie heroes showed up – or more precisely, dropped down onto the campsite from the skies in a helicopter.

Glacier - sheep rescue in Iceland

30.6.2008 Steinar

Last Saturday one of the glacier guides at Sólheimajökull had a rather unusual experience. He was just coming down from the glacier tong with a group of clients when three farmers, all wearing their wellingtons (but of course!), … approach him on their way to the glacier. And best of all a flock of Icelandic sheep followed with them. But why heading with a flock of sheep’s to the glacier?

The blue ice of Sólheimajökull glacier

11.5.2008 Steinar

This time a year - late October till mid February - the glacier ice is not white as in summer but blue. Because of the cold the ice doesn´t melt and therefore there is little oxygen in it´s surface. This makes the ice transparent so it´s blue core can easily be seen.

One day they might disappear ...

2.1.2008 Steinar

... until then they will never close because of some rain!

The Glaciers are open contrary to the word on the streets: "I heard the glaciers are closing down because of the rain!".
True: Global warming as well as the rain will without doubt put an end to many glaciers on the earth some time in the future.
But that is some centuries away ... at least one! Besides practicing some good way’s of living with minor impact to the environment we recommend a trip to see and feel these giants.

Icelandic Mountain Guides win the Icelandair Pioneer Award

12.4.2006 Steinar

The first ever Icelandair Pioneer Award was awarded to Icelandic Mountain Guides on the 7th of April 2006. Icelandic Mountain Guides won the award for their innovative programme of glacier walks which enable adventurers from around the world to get up real close to glaciers and ice.