The current crisis that the world is going through due to the epidemic of covid 19 will force us to rework our next season and to reduce the number of departures to focus on some of our favorites and where participants are already registered. An online update will be made in early April and a second in early May.
Everyone wants to walk the path of Laugavegur. Yes, but…
The marked trail running from Landmannalaugar to Thorsmörk, known as Laugavegur Trail, has become the reference of hiking in Iceland and the goal of most hikers who are considering Iceland. But…
The gregarious spirit of most young people who unfortunately only depend on their phone applications, the lack of imagination of the organizers, the advertising of the tourist partners and the jounalistic carbon copy clichés, made it alas far too famous.
The two private bus companies that connect Reykjavik to Landmannalaugar and Thorsmörk to Reykjavik are doing their job very well and they do not complain about this success, which of course they participate.
Apart from the non-existent catering (Except, since last year, a tiny bistro in Áltavatn serving hearty soups and fresh beers) everything that exists around this path, transport, refuges, guarding, rescue is initially well thought out, but unfortunately has long exceeded the saturation stage and is a shame.
The crowded accommodation infrastructure does not follow. Yet it is not the means that are lacking. In two words it is some time a bloody shambles and if of course we groan or even grouse about this, but busines is so juicy as it is.
This beautiful trail, organized as it is, should have been reserved as a priority for independant backpackers who are always several thousand to hike on it each summer.
The boredom is that unimaginative companies sell it online as self-guided trek with luggage transport or as guided group. Some have daily departures. This adds to it from time to time what the English call „Charity trek“, two hundred people at once and at full speed. Could it be the trendy and hysterical version of the pilgrimage?
Some shelters en route are more than saturated and infrastructures do not follow. At a tightening point like Botnar before the descent on Thorsmörk it overflows everywhere.
Each sleeping bunk of this rudimentary shelter is used and most of the time you have to share it cramped with a stranger if you are not a couple, it is not always the dream meeting and it is not really sexy .
Yet a berth in these shelters costs as much as a double room in a decent hotel elsewhere in the western world or as much as in a beautiful hut with a soft duvet and hot rolls in a charming alpine hut in Switzerland.
Thirty years later it is still not possible to feed or buy food on the way and thats mean that You have to take everything with you as on a real expedition.
There are even more tents around the shelters, which is quite aesthetic to see sometimes: all these multicolored igloo tents in the great tragic landscape. All these friendly and courageous campers who, of course, pay for their pitch, also use the paying showers and the sanitary facilities originally planned for the refuge. After a long day of walking, sometimes you have to queue for a long time to shower. A moment of inattention or if sheltering from the wind and / or the rain while awaiting his turn, and one loses its place. Not easy to shower on Laugavegur „the hot water baths“ which takes its name from the famous hot river of Landmannalaugar „the baths of the farmers“ where today thousands of tourists and travelers are wading and splashing.
In any case, Laugavegur is really a juicy business just like the Golden Circle, which really bears his name! But this can be a disappointment for the hiker who was promised the moon.