Planning northern Iceland trip for January.

It will soon be time for our January deep winter trip to northern Iceland. I have been to Iceland before in winter, but last time it was to the south and a road trip along the south coast and I've included a few images from that trip in this blog post. This time however, I am planning on going to the far north to an area I have never been to before, but understand that it is incredible in winter. One thing I do know from past experience is that planning is essential. Many tourists go to Iceland in the summer months, but in winter it's a whole different ball game. The weather can be brutal, and change in an instant, so it's essential to have a plan and the right equipment with you.

So over the last few weeks I have been putting together an itinerary and an equipment list for all eventualities. Gear wise I intend to take two camera bodies (one in case the other fails) which are my main Nikon D850 plus a back up D810. I will also be taking a selection of lenses suitable for landscape photography. I'll take a couple of primes, but they are mainly for people and I think this trip will mainly be landscape so my lens selection will focus on that. I'll also be taking my DJI Mavic 4 Pro drone. Over the past few months I have taken a number of exams to ensure I am fully qualified and covered to fly this heavier drone throughout Europe. It's main Hasselblad camera is something else so I am sure it will come into its own in northern Iceland. I'm just praying for winds less than 25-30mph now, so I can fly it as it does not like winds more than that. For my drone photography is all about images. I am not really interested in making movies, but being able to shoot quality images from exciting perspectives is very cool. I'll have a range of batteries with me for the drone plus ND filters in case of bright sunlight, plus spare props etc. I'll have my Mac with me so I can edit in Lightroom during the evenings, and I may even take Starlink if I have space.

The rest of my gear will involve the correct outdoor clothing for -15 weather and the fairly impassable places I am planning on going. I've a few winter trips coming up so new Miedl boots, and a new Thrudark End of Days Parka are going to come in handy alongside some Stellar Equipment mid layers and arctic trousers not mentioning the torches and Petzl head torches needed for the dark.

Itinerary wise, we will be flying into Reykjavik in the afternoon and will not have time to transfer to the domestic airport near downtown Reykjavik, so we will overnight at a Hotel in downtown and get the first domestic flight out to Akureyri the following morning were we have booked a Toyota LandCruiser with full winter set up and studded offroad tyres at the airport. The plan from there is to make the road trip up to Siglufjørddur in the very far north. In the summer this would be a nice 90 minute drive, but in winter that road can be impassable and requires great care and certainly should not be driven in the dark. There is a great avalanche risk if there has been heavy snow, and a couple of tunnels through mountains to navigate so I am expecting a journey of around 3 hours, maybe more. There is also severe ice risk on the early sections of this route. We have a reservation at one of the few hotels that stay open in northern Iceland in January, but may have to change this element of the trip if the road to Siglufjørddur is closed. We hope to spend a couple of nights in this stunning fishing village.

Following our time in Siglufjørddur we will then retrace our steps back toward Akureyri and then head inland to the stunning Myvatn Lake were we will spend five nights. It will be my first time here, but I understand it's breathtaking in the winter with the lake frozen and surrounded by disused volcanos covered in snow. Some of the areas I hope to go to are even beyond the abilities of the mighty LandCruiser and are off limits during the winter. Off-limits unless you have what the Icelandic's call a Super Jeep! Which indeed we do for a couple of days. A Super Jeep is basically an extreme 4x4 which has been lifted even higher and fitted with enormous specialised tyres which van be inflated and deflated depending on the ice and snow depth the experienced guide and driver are trying to traverse.

The first Super Jeep expedition planned is a journey up the east side of Dettifoss to the stunning frozen waterfall. The track up to the east of Dettifoss is completely impassable and totally off limits during winter but we have a guide who insists he can make it through. The images and drone photography should be spectacular. Following that and on another day we aim to travel up to another stunning waterfall Aldejarfoss. Due to Icelandic daylight in January of only 4 hours a day it's impossible to make it to both waterfalls on the same day. So it will be early starts in the dark both days to ensure we are on location ready for sunrise around 11am each day.

We will also spend a couple of days exploring Myvatn Lake, and photographing the stunning craters of Skutustaøagigar, the enormous volcano of Hverfjall and the miniture winter forest of Høfdi Peninsula. If we have time we will also make the trip to Husavik and the Geothermal baths that look out toward Greenland over the sea.

So that is the basis of the trip I've put together. We will return to Reykjavik for a night after dropping the LandCruiser in Akureyri as our International flight to Glasgow departs very early morning so it will be an airport Hotel after making the transfer from the domestic terminal to Keflavik International Airport. We are really looking forward to this trip and hopefully have some nice images to share with you along the way.