A tourist operator stumbled across a family wandering around on Langjökull glacier yesterday. Langjökull is quite dangerous for those unfamiliar with the area and has whirlpools reaching 100-200 metres down into the glacier.
“I asked [the father] what he was doing,” the director of ICE Explorer, Arngrímur Hermannsson, told RÚV. “He answered: Am I maybe doing something I shouldn’t be doing?”
The family of five, two adults and three children, had driven onto the glacier in a rented car and on roads typically used by tour companies driving eight-wheelers equipped for extreme weather.
“This is the best way to get on Langjökull glacier and as a result people try to drive up in rental cars and do it all themselves,” said Arngrímur. “My jaw absolutely dropped when I saw that they’d driven their rental car all the way up there. That he’d managed to get that far. We have said in the past that we need to put up signs warning people against trying to travel onto the glacier without proper equipment. I told him that he was lucky to have avoided the glacial mud. A car got stuck in that the day before and that it had been raining the past 3 days, so the glacier was very slippery and dangerous. He told me he was going to hurry up and leave while he could.”
Many parts of Iceland are dangerous and it is best to exercise caution while travelling by yourself. Tourists and natives alike regularly get lost or caught in bad weather. To ensure you get the most out of your trip to Iceland and avoid unnecessary jeopardy check out Safe Travel.
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