After a night at the airport in Reykjavik, we arrived on the Vatnajokull glacier on Sunday morning, just enough time to set up the tents and the rain started to welcome us. Fortunately the temperatures are not so extreme (we are always talking a few degrees above the thermal 0) but for the first day it was impossible to get out of the tents due to rain and strong wind.
Monday conditions have improved a lot and after a refreshing breakfast we divided into 3 teams to throw ourselves in search of glacial mills. Thanks to a cartographic research work carried out in the previous weeks and to the reports of Niccolò, an Italian guide who has lived between Iceland and Greenland for several years, we have been without fail. We have explored and documented several mills, some of which are between 70-100m deep and others less deep but equally beautiful and interesting. Unfortunately, already in the evening the weather conditions have worsened strongly, even Tuesday we spend all day in a tent and hope to be able to resume activities as early as tomorrow.
The expedition is sponsored by La Venta as well as by the Italian Alpine Club and the Italian Speleological Society, organized as part of the Glacial Speleology project and sponsored by Tiberino Specialty Food.
Tommaso Santagata