Fjallabak's team

Our guides are the keystones of all our trips. We, at Fjallabak know their importance, as we all started out guiding and all continue to do so when time permits! The guide takes care of all the details necessary for a successful journey: the group spirit, security, supplies and relations with the local population. They carry out the itinerary and modify it according to the group and the conditions. All of our guides are cultivated men and women, enthusiastic about their work and above all, experts in the area where they guide. Group safety is most important to us and our guides are fully trained in wilderness first aid and rescue procedures. Either native or adopted Icelanders, our guides all speak English in addition to various other languages such as French, Italian, German and Japanese.

Most often our guides are accompanied by an assistant and a driver, themselves great characters, mountain experts and fonts of local knowledge, who also play an important role in the success of the journey. And all of our trips also rely on the hard work of a talented group of support staff. Our team here is all dedicated to just one aim: to ensure that each tour is successful, safe and an unforgettable experience for all.


Pierre Brihat

Pierre BrihatPierrot” or “Pedro”, 39, is proud to be from Marseille, the same town as the Greek explorer Pytheas, who is thought to be the first discoverer of Iceland in about 325BC. He is also renowned (Pierre, not Pytheas) to be the best pasta maker in The North. He has lived in California, but today lives in Paris from where he administers our website and our computers. Pierre has a serious disease called "fidgeting". This spring, before coming to Icelandic for the season, he beefed up by riding his bike, a powerful BMW (R1200 GS Adv), around America on a 20.000 miles road trip. Despite the time gap and thanks to the internet, we were able to work almost as usual and thanks to Skype, we have visited many motel rooms as the background of a happy bikers face. We think that walking in Iceland is the only thing which makes him forget his bike.

Gabriel

Gabriel Patay Filippusson,“Gabbi”, 35, mountain guide. As son of Philippe and Sigridur, he has the highlands in his blood. An experienced leader of many Icelandic expeditions, but also trips to Greenland, Alaska and the Sahara. Fluently speaking English and French, passionate supporter of Icelandic nature, talented photographer and has a special love for mechanics . Off-season, he is a carpenter and travels Iceland and the world with little regard for personal safety. This year, he is re-furbishing a sailboat to enable more extreme travels. He became a little bit more sedentary since his wonderful son was born two years ago but he is yet planning to take him soon on the road of freedom.  Need we say more?

Aurélien

Aurélien Bihr, "Aurel" 35, (our American clients call him Orwellian) trekking guide and driver is Fjallabak's adopted son. A Frenchman and father of “mini-me”, Adrien, 10 years, he has lived in Iceland for 8 years now, since falling in love with the unspoiled wilderness and the lifestyle. An inexhaustible walker, with an unflappable, humorous disposition, a talented linguist, great cook and possessor of endless charm.

Lea Gestdottir

Lea Gestdóttir, 25, is the very last mountain muse of Fjallabak. French by her mother, she recently got her diploma of philosophy from the Sorbonne University of Paris. When she speaks French she is the revolutionary resistant trendy type, but when she expresses herself in Icelandic, she talks with this strong old fashion viking accent from Dalvik in the North of Iceland. Lea is completely fluent in English and she is also very comfortable with Italian and Spanish. After one summer of intense formation in 2009, she is now one of our very experimented guide, indefatigable, friendly and devoted to her clients and in love with the mountains of Iceland.

Stebbi Stef

Stephan Stephensen, “Stebbi Stef”, 40, mountain guide, returns to the highlands every summer to lead our tours. Yet, he is a very well known member of Reykjavik’s underground music scene and spends much of his year performing as a musician in the band Gusgus, at home and abroad. His ability to navigate whilst signing autographs for young girls is legendary in the mountains here

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Harpa

Harpa Barkadóttir, 33, has led English and French speaking tours and treks for us for 6 years now. An expert on Iceland’s wilderness, her smile and enthusiasm will light up any trip. But do not be fooled - her leadership style has been described as an “iron hand in a velvet glove”. Additionally, she has studied anthropology and gender studies, is a talented musician and singer and is mother to the lovely Matthias. With her husband Jean-Marc she recently moved to beautifull Lake Myvatn in North Iceland where they run Alkemia together an incoming agency for wellbeing, yoga and spa in the wild. www.alkemia.is

Orri Gunnarsson

Orri Gunnarsson (35) joined our team in 2010. Right after teaching his Nordic spring travel & design course at the University of Michigan he jumps into the driver's seat and heads back to the highlands. Orri earned his degree in civil and environmental engineering in Iceland, masters degree in urban and regional planning in the US and studied architecture in Germany for a while. A restless jack of all trades he doesn't return to his regular planning consultant job until in the fall.<

Anna Stina

Anna Kristin Ásbjörnsdóttir is here with a porthole of the Pourquoi Pas, a French polar exploration ship that sank in Iceland in 1936. A dedicated mountaineer, skier, professional guide, publisher and a true lover of the Icelandic nature. Anna Stina lived in France for ten years where she organized tours to Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and Norway. She has a great gift for treating each and every client or group with every special need and requirement in her open mind. She is 100% service-minded and always looking for ways to improved tours and seek new opportunities.

 

Laurent Jegu

Laurent Jegu, 35, is from Brittany in France . He has a master of trade and communication with a specialization in multimedia and audiovisual. Came to Iceland for three months to work in a production of films and reportage. Small casual jobs he eventually settled for good. He was busy organizing a film festival in Reykjavik and then leads to adventure tourism.Laurent is a dedicated leader, resourceful and tempered with whom it is a pleasure to travel. He often turns our duet with Estrid.

Estrid Ţórvaldsdóttir
Estrid Thorvaldsdottir, 34 y.o., trekking and sightseeing guide. Here is another linguist genius : not only she speaks all scandinavian languages, she also masters french and  italian. Throughout the year she teaches yoga both at the city hospitals and in yoga centers, which makes her the perfect guide to get in close connexion with icelandic nature and tales.
 
PS.Her chocolate mousse is another wonder of the highlands  !
 
Svenni

Sveinn Steinar Benediktson, "Svenni", 29, is an electronic engineer studying at the University of Art in Reykjavik, a musician and artist. When he is not driving jeeps and trucks he is guiding challenging treks in the interior of the country. He makes his own cameras, with plastic boxes or cartoons, that is all he needs. We remember one trek he did a couple of years ago with French proffesional photographers. Sveinn, who is fluent in English but doesn´t speak so much French, was their driver-guide. When the overcharged photographers saw Svenni take out a plastic strange looking camera, they thought that the boy was making fun of them or that he was just a simple guy. They certainly proved wrong when they saw his photos.

Kelso

David Kelley “Kelso”, 42, mountain guide. He came to these shores 10 summers ago, after “getting his mid-life crisis in early…”. An experienced, passionate leader, he loves food just as much as he loves walking, so a good trip is guaranteed. Also a keen photographer, he is fascinated with the Icelandic geology and wildlife. A world traveler, he has led trips in the Sahara and China and also lived in New Zealand for a while. An ex-rugby player, originally from England, resident in Reykjavik and sick of being accused of being an Australian. Recently with Arna, his icelandic wife and they two children they moved faraway from the "crowd" of the capital in a little village on the south shore of iceland where they run a Bakkabrim a little organic coffee shop facing the ocean and the birds.

Sigurlina

Séverine Pech, "Sigurlina" is a phenomenon, a solid girl with a big heart. This child of the Cathar country, who went through the Sorbonne, understands during a training of glider over Annecy, her need for immensity. She leaves everything behind and comes in Iceland. She discovers the power of glaciers and she falls in love with it, and here she has been stuck on the island for 4 years now. It graduates in the school for guides of Iceland and is committed to the rescue patrol. She has license for driving any heavyweight large 4x4 buses. She stammers four languages on a daily basis. When she does not guide at the national park of Skafatafell, Sigurlina leads treks and 4x4 discoveries.

Ţröstur Sverrisson

Þröstur Sverrisson (Thröstur) has been going to the mountains since his childhood. He has traveled in most part of Iceland and Fjallabak is one of his favorite places. He is an English speaking professional hiking and driver guide. He earned his masters degree in environmental history in Maine USA and has been working in the museum field for the last ten years, most of the time in the former home of Halldor Laxness Nobel laureate for literature. So don’t get surprised if he starts quoting Laxness on the next mountain top.