Glacier cave adventure in Iceland... Oh! and inside, she said "yes"! :)

***ALL photos are unmodified and unfiltered.

I wanted to take a minute or two and share my experience of touring an ice cave inside the Vatnajökull glacier of eastern Iceland this past March. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in all of Europe, if I'm remembering that right.  It was quite literally a life-changing experience, especially being that I went into the cave as a "boyfriend" and came out a "fiancé"! All photos were taken with a Nikon D90 or iPhone 6.

It was March 2nd, 2016 and we were fortunate enough to have a small group of only about 8 people or so.  It really helped make it all feel a lot more intimate.  We met our tour guide about a mile away from the glacier itself and he pulled up with this freaking van that had the biggest tires I've ever seen in person.  These things were huge! Probably as tall as my stomach area.  

^^^Here's the beast (with the misses for scale reference).

I'm a 33 year old guy BUT, if I were ever to be a soccer mom.... you bet your ass this is the van I'd be driving.  Anyway, we trucked down the road about 1/4 mile and then I quickly realized why this monster was necessary.  The driver pulled off the road ("ring road" as it's called; route 1 basically loops around the whole perimeter of the island country) and started across the tundra.  No roads, no telling what was under the snow, no signs.  Just a few tracks from previous tours, at best.  It was wild!  Once we started taking nature on headfirst like this, I was actually surprised this van, or any vehicle without tracks for that matter, could make it.  Nonetheless, we were heading toward the Vatnajökull Glacier!

^^Looking out the window heading across the tundra.

After about pretty gnarly (and stressful) 40 minute drive, we made it to the cave entrance.  I could see a pretty small hole the ground from my seat in the van. That was the cave entrance.  These poor buggers have to head up to that entrance every morning and shovel the snow out; I felt bad for them, even more so the moment I stepped out of the van.  The guide provided us with helmets and ice cleats for our shoes.  We had cleats, but these ones were way more serious.  The looked like chainsaw blades.  We were to put both accessories on right outside of the van.  No big whoop, right? Boy was I wrong.  The moment we stepped out of the van, I experienced something I never had before to that point in my life: COLD.  I mean Arctic Tundra Cold.  Now, Iceland just misses the arctic circle if you want to get technical, but it's damn close.  It was unreal.  The cold and the wind... it was incredible.  I'm from Pennsylvania, USA and we have some harsh and cold winters, but this was a whole other animal.  Any exposed flesh started getting scary cold immediately.  I managed to get the cleats on and was struggling with my helmet, but I just ran for the sweet relief of the cave. (Kylene did much better than me with getting all of her shit together)

^^^Always time for a quick portrait. Me all decked out.

The first thing to strike me about the cave, aside from feeling like I wasn't going to die anymore, was the color. I was hoping to see some blue ice and this place really delivered. It was incredible.  There were white, snowy walls with cracks that revealed a beautiful deep blue/purple that almost seemed like it was being lit up by a neon light.

^^^One such crack. Unmodified, taken with my iPhone.

After about 30 or 40 feet of working our way through a narrow corridor with walls like the picture above, we entered the first pretty large open chamber. Maybe about 80ft in diameter and 15ft ceilings. That's the one pictured at the very top of this story.  It even had a small opening in the ceiling that let light and white powder snow in.  It was awesome.

^^^At the entrance of the first large chamber.  Some cool, clear, non-blue ice.  

^^^The hole in the ceiling of the first large chamber.  The powder white snow was cool against the blue ice backdrop.

After spending about 20 minutes in that chamber we headed deeper into the cave, where things got a lot darker and the ice got a lot darker and a lot deeper blue.

^^^ Kylene towards the back of the open chamber.

^^^ The pathway before me.

The ceiling kept getting lower and lower until we eventually were on our hands and knees.  We crawled our way through about 25 feet of this section where the ceiling was only about 30 inches from the ground.  The ground it self was pretty cool.  There was no longer a trace of snow this deep in and it was just volcanic ash rubble that the glacier has been dragging along for eons.  Some of the time and history of the glacier started playing into my thoughts around this point.

^^^ Kylene making her way through the tight squeeze.

Eventually, the tight spot opened up to a large second chamber.  The area was about 60 foot around, I'd say and that highest area of the ceiling was maybe 9 feet tall.  The tour guide told me there was about 30 feet of ice above us and that we were lucky we went on such a nice, clear sunny day because it really lit the cave up.  It was an amazing sight.  The ice was smooth as glass and made a giant dome that we were standing in.  Again, the time involved in this structure was awe inspiring.  I drank a few drops of water that were dripping form the roof and thought "Man, this drop of water might be 15,000 years old or more".  It was the best drop of water I ever tasted. :)

^^^ Looking along one of the "walls".  Blue ice dome with a black volcano ash floor made it hard to photograph, especially without a tripod.

Quick story about the next part.  I knew I was going to propose to Kylene on this trip, but I wasn't 100% sure when or where.  That being said, I knew I wanted someone to photograph that moment so I started making small talk with a mom and daughter duo in the van on our way out.  Turned out the mom grew up in Pennsylvania also in the same town that Kylene now works.  Small world!  Anyway, I noticed they had a decent camera with them and figured they might be pretty familiar with the basics, so I handed our camera to the mom and my iPhone to the daughter and asked them if they could just take a few photos of us in the cave.  No one was expecting anything different... PERFECT!

^^^SHE SAID YES!

I figured that cave was one of the most incredible sites I had ever seen, so what better of a place?  Also, these caves collapse ever summer (you can only tour glacier caves in the winter) and the tour groups have to go scouting new ones each year.  That also appealed to me.  I don't know, I thought it was cool that it's a place that will never be there again.  I'd be willing to bet no one else proposed in this very spot and now no one else will.  It was a special moment in a very special place.  :) 

^^^ I went to Brilliant Earth.  They do some awesome work and they're conflict stone free.

Well, after a bunch more photos and maybe a half hour, we all headed back out of the cave.  Luckily, the weather died down a bit and we all piled back into the monster truck van.  We're planning a destination wedding for 2017.................. to Iceland.  :)

^^^And we rode off into the sunset as fiancés.   

Thanks for reading!