Iceberg Climbing

Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon - Iceland, March 2008

While in Iceland, I wanted to try my hand at ice climbing on an iceberg. This type of ice is notoriously difficult and dangerous to climb due to the poor quality of the ice and the unpredictable nature of icebergs. They can often be unstable and overturn without notice.

While scouting out icebergs to climb, I found this perfect one in the glacial lagoon near Vatnajokull. It was in a perfect position and was about the right size.	Here I am paddling an inflatable kayak out into the lagoon to survey the iceberg up close. I had to be very careful with my sharp ice climbing equipment.

Up onto the iceberg. It was difficult to get up onto it from the inflatable boat but the view was worth the effort.	I wanted to go to the other side of the iceberg and the only way to do that was to climb down and walk around on top of a series of floating ice packs which were only a few inches thick.

At the iceberg summit, looking around the lagoon.	The difficult task of climbing back down came next. It is much trickier than climbing up.

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