A Hut on the Moon ¦ Trekking Iceland's Lava Desert

Black sand, moonscapes, wind, and a deafening silence. Sometimes beauty isn't soft, it's sharp, empty, and desolate. At least to our human eyes. In such beauty is exactly where you find this hut. This tiny box of wood, bolted shut against storms, sits in the most desolate lava desert in Europe. To reach it we had to walk six days. Two of those we crossed lava fields with no water. Last push. Why did I go there? Why is this hut there? And what is in it? Let me show you Kistafell Emergency Hut. After months of planning, poring over maps, and dreaming of this trip, Iceland's largest lava desert, and one of the most active dust sources in Iceland. So we're just walking through the desert, like desert, desert. It's just black sand for kilometers on end. Around four litres of water in the pack. The hut lies along the Geysirvotn road in the Icelandic highlands. It's only accessible by 4x4 vehicles in summer, or by foot. And right here we see, oh god, we see the black part is where 2014-2015 there was a lava flow. So this is the newest lava flow and lava fleet. What is going on? This is what happens when you trek for five days. Lava field in Iceland. And yeah, no water here. No nothing. No cars. At least maybe one every three hours or something. And yeah, pretty insane. I found some skeletons as well. So it's a very desolate place. But yeah, fascinating. To reach Kristofell, you walk along that lava flow's edges. But Dingjonsundur isn't just empty land. Iceland actually has around 22,000 square kilometers of sandy desert, which is a major contributor to atmospheric dust. And this is one of the largest sand and gravel deserts in Iceland. Each year, millions of tons of black volcanic sand are lifted by the wind. This desert is one of the largest natural sources of air pollution in the Arctic. And because this sand is of volcanic origin, it's really dark. So when it covers snow, all the heat from the sun is absorbed, which means the snow melts faster. It's fascinating. It's just nothing. We just crossed over this whole area. We came from the desert here. We camped somewhere around this mountain. Now it's very far away. And where we came from, two days away, lies Askja volcano, where NASA once trained Apollo astronauts. I think we've nearly reached the caldera or whatever the crater. But there's still so much snow here. We're crossing melting snow fields covered in volcanic ash and sand. We have around 2 more km left and I'm exhausted. Yes, it was 33 km and it's just like everything's desert. All of this gray area over there is basically glacier covered with dust and sand. And then the Vatnajökull glacier is behind there. And finally, there it was. A tiny matchbox in a field of charcoal colored rubble. It felt like some obscure hallucination in that desolation. And after such a long day on trail, Kistafell hut. As we arrived, the hut's windows and doors were entirely bolted with wooden planks. Anytime you leave, you have to seal them again to protect it in storms from gusts and exposure. In 1950, a DC-4 passenger plane crashed near here. Miraculously, there were no fatalities. But Kistafell hut didn't exist yet at that time. And this area was extremely remote as well and the glacier terrain made rescue very challenging. Kistafell emergency hut was likely built much later, possibly in the 1980s and 90s during the push to build strategic emergency shelters across Iceland's highlands. We just got to Kistafell. It's pretty cool. Inside the hut is simple, obviously. Two sleeping platforms, space for 12, a guestbook filled with absurd stories. Reading stories out of the guestbook and someone hiked through this area in flip-flops, at least partly, because they started the hike with new shoes and it hurt so much that they had to wear their flip-flops, which is insane because the terrain is like lava, rocks. Yep. So yeah, there's some crazy stories in here. And there's drinking water resupply here, which rangers told us they just filled up, so that's great. So the drinking water resupply is here. Rangers bring in water every few days in plastic canisters and even though Kistafell emergency hut is right on the central edge of Iceland's largest ice cap, and the glacier seems so close you could touch it, there is no water. There's hikers and cyclists and then there's some old workbench here and some old fireplace and then you go into the main hut heater, some plates, sleeping area, very old stove and yeah just some books and candles and map up the area. Mainly the hut is now a stopover for mountain bikers and trekkers crossing Iceland. This place taught me surrender. There's no dominating the wind. There's no negotiating with silence. There's not much but yourself and your own chattering mind. Nothing that guarantees good weather conditions. Nothing to help you escape from those bad weather conditions. Beautiful valley but it's raining. You can go as far as nature lets you and thus you learn to listen. In daily life we live in civilized cities built to control the wild. Temperature, light, noise, it's all controlled or at least in a safe controlled environment. But in the desolate Icelandic highlands, even with Kistafell's small attempt to make a refuge in that wilderness, everything controls you and in that necessary surrender you feel free.