Grab your hiking boots and get ready, because you’re going to hike the Sólheimajökull Glacier Hike in southern Iceland. This is a comprehensive glacier tour, where you’ll learn about these massive natural phenomena from your guide and be provided with all the necessary equipment to get some exercise in full comfort and safety.

Sólheimajökull Glacier Hike

This tour is for anyone looking to experience one of the natural wonders of the earth. You’ll meet your guide in the Sólheimajökull parking lot and then make your way to the ice itself, a brisk 30-minute walk to get the blood flowing. (The glacier was once closer to the lot, but warming weather and the glacier’s own movement have caused it to recede into the distance.)

Sólheimajökull glacier hike is a part of Mýrdalsjökull, one of the biggest glaciers in Europe. It is featured in detail in the 2012 documentary “Chasing Ice,” an award-winning investigation of climate change.

Once you reach the ice, you’ll be given plenty of time to marvel at the eerie silence and feeling of isolation, as if you and your fellow hikers are alone in a vast, empty world of ice and snow. You’ll view millennia-old blue ice, created when oxygen bubbles are trapped in the snow and compressed into ice by the enormous weight of the glacier pressing down upon it. You’ll be able to gaze deep into a glacier moulin, a vertical shaft like a well, which can go all the way to the bottom of the glacier.

What’s down there? The ice cap sits on top of the mighty Katla volcano, one of the largest and most active volcanoes in Iceland. On a clear day, you may also be able to see Eyjafjallajökull, another glacier to the east that famously brought European air traffic to a halt in 2010 when its eruption filled the sky with fire and ash.

Excited about the tour? here are our other mind-blowing tours

Crater 1 Laki Craters Mountain Expedition

Katla ice cave tour – departure Vík

Family horse tour on Black Beach

The meeting point is by our trailer marked Troll Expeditions in the parking lot of Sólheimajökull Glacier.

Directions from Reykjavík (or any other place further west) Drive east on Road 1 until you reach road 221 – Sólheimajökulsvegur. Take a left turn onto road 221 and drive until you reach the parking lot at Sólheimajökull. Distance from Reykjavík: 160km. Directions from Vík (or any other place further east) Drive west onRoad 1 until you reach road 221 – Sólheimajökulsvegur. Take a right turn onto road 221 and drive until you reach the parking lot at Sólheimajökull. Distance from Vík: 26km For driving directions, click on the map below.

Departures ✓ 9:00 ✓ 11:00 ✓ 13:00 ✓ 15:00 Difficulty ✓ Moderate Duration ✓ 3 hours Included ✓ Certified Glacier Guide ✓ Small Group (12 persons max) ✓ Glacier Equipment: helmet, harness, crampons, and ice ax

What you need to bring

• Hiking boots (available for rent online and on location)

• Warm clothes (first layer)

• Waterproof clothing (second layer)

• Gloves and hat

Minimum age ✓ 8 years