Right on the second day in Iceland we were ready for hiking and planned to conquer Mount Esja. It is located right next to the capital and the summit is over 700m high. Locals of Reykjavik use it for training and quite many people do this hike so it was pretty crowded.
After 5 minutes we were already exhausted lol, and realized that we are out of shape. Not a big deal, let's push on.
It was great to be in the mountains again, I had missed this landscape badly.
When you are about halfway up you can see an amazing view all over Reykjavik. Inevitably this was also a level where the clouds started so I took this picture in case I don't see down anymore.
This was the terrain and as you can see it is also quite steep.
Not long after we were in a checkpoint named Steinn, which means stone in Icelandic. This is the point where most people and locals turn back.
If you are going to go further to the summit the be prepared for the steep and rocky climbs, some places can also be very dangerous if you slip and fall down the cliff. Of course, we went to the summit, didn't go to Iceland to do the hikes only halfway up.
We were mostly in clouds but sometimes they cleared and I loved the views through.
Near the summit, the trail got narrow and had to use metal ropes to climb. This is the part where is not recommended to fall.
And soon enough we were at the top. There was also a book where we wrote our names and the date of the climb.
And then the way down with absolutely gorgeous views.
This loop trail is about 9KM long and took us a little over 3hours to complete. Quite fast I would say, considering the steep and not-so-easy terrain.
When we were down, we refilled our water bottles from this small waterfall. The water is clean and drinkable everywhere in Iceland so there is no worries when you need to refill in a random place.
Overall, I loved this hike. Pretty crowded but this is not a huge factor, the incredible landscape and feeling of accomplishment on the summit compensates. The weather was also good, not too windy and we got no rain.
Until the next one!
