Vatnajökull - literally "Glacier of Lakes" is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland. Vatnajokull is situated in the South-East of Iceland and covering approximately 8% of the country. With an area of 7,900 km², Vatnajökull is the largest ice cap in Europe by volume (about 3,000 km³). On 7 June 2008, it became a part of the Vatnajökull National Park.
The average thickness of Vatnajokull ice is 380 m with a maximum thickness of 950 m.
Under the ice cap, as under many of the glaciers of Iceland, there are several volcanoes. Eruptions from these volcanoes have led to the development of large pockets of water beneath the ice barriers and extensive Ice Cave = Ice Water Tunnels.

And here we are why we’ve gone to Iceland for our “Expedition Iceland 2008”. Major goal of trip was – of course – volcanoes. Iceland is place with probably highest concentration active volcanoes in the World = there are apparently 52 active volcanoes on the island. Many of them are covered or hidden under glaciers.

Vatnajokull’s Ice Field has around 30 outlet glaciers each of them with labyrinth of Ice Caves of almost unimaginable size – as you can see in this document. We decided to go to the difficult reachable mountain range Kverkfjöll situated on the north-eastern border of the glacier Vatnajökull. With their glacier Kverkjökull, mountain range could be found between the Vatnajökull and the Dyngjufjöll. The mountains in the range are still active volcanoes.

One of these Ice Caves where we wanted to enter Glacier has volcano covered by couple of hundred meters of icy with “mystical” Ice Chamber inside of the glacier is towering almost 100 meters. That was the goal of our trip there. Unfortunately vault of the chamber collapsed couple of months before our departure so the whole area was closed = obviously not for everybody, as you can see from this document. Whole cave was steaming from hot water coming from the volcano vents so most of the pictures were shoot in steaming fog what is obviously not ideal for photography – however this document is still unique in my collection of documents for “VOLCANOES OF MY LIFE”

I’ve spent following SIX years. SIX Summers and ONE Winter in Iceland which ever since that first trip staying in my heart as the most beautiful country of my soul in the whole World.

You might find many more other documents about Iceland on my site “JVD PHOTOGRAPHY – YouTube”

Cheers and enjoy.

Jiri

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