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Driving up a glacier in Iceland sounds like fun. But even with Arctic-kitted Toyota Land Cruisers and expert guides, it turns into a sub-zero nightmare world where everything you ever knew about cars just doesn’t apply. |
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A tremor of dread and unmanly quivering begins at the initial briefing. We are not, it is stressed with much gesticulating of gnarled hands, on a jolly. The expedition to the top of Iceland’s Vatnajokull glacier is regarded as the Holy Grail, even for notoriously adventure-obsessed Icelanders. As one of the team, Magnùs (pronounced Mag-noosh), gestures at the featureless white blob taking up the top right of the map, we realise these guys are serious. We laugh in much the same manner as men sentenced to be hanged.
It gets slightly more fraught when they introduce the kit. Among the all-in-one Arctic survival suits and prosthetic penises (so that Arctic-adventuring ladies don’t have to strip down in extreme temperatures just to go to the loo) are variations on the Land Cruiser theme (including the newest), all in differing states of battle dress courtesy of a company called Arctic Trucks that – you’re ahead of me here – prepares trucks for the Arctic.
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One particular mutant Land Cruiser has visited both poles; it’s affectionately referred to as the ‘Polak’ – geddit? It has an entire workshop on board, 44-inch tyres and an interesting scaffold arrangement bolted to the front. When I ask what the climbing frame is for, owner Valtii explains it is to stop the car falling even further if it has gone nose-first into a crevasse. Then you make your exit via the escape hatch in the roof. Oh God.
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It soon becomes apparent that the deadpan Icelandic people – or at least those assembled here – have a willingness to laugh at anything and everything. It can be hard to take them seriously when they all sound, to these ears, like Chef from The Muppets. They’re tough, though. When faced with an inhospitable lava flow with about as many comforting features as an S&M dungeon, they happily hang their hats on a convenient outcrop and hit bits of the scenery until it gets flat enough to live on. Through the ages, they have gone to some trouble to make the most of a place you and I would have abandoned to the lichen.
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Car Magazine |
The fascinating Land Cruiser Iceland adventure report was kindly provided by CAR magazine. Story Tom Ford, Photography Gus Gregory. More...
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