Time and water are of extraordinary significance in the hearts of Icelanders. Iceland is the center of the Quaternary ice sheet, with glaciers covering 11.5% of the island; Stein Steiner, an Icelandic national treasure poet and one of the founders of Nordic modernist poetry, once wrote, "Time is like an unfinished portrait, painted by water and me together."
Iceland
Although it looks cold and steep, hiking on Watner Glacier is actually much easier than whale watching, and there is no need for prior training. Just put on iceberg hiking equipment and follow the tour guide. From a distance, the glacier looks like a collection of countless copper sulfate crystals, showing a clear blue color under the heavy dark clouds. After approaching, I found that it contains rich details: the white ice body is wrapped in black volcanic ash, showing a delicate texture like ice cream, countless rough cracks cut the ice surface, and gullies of different shades are vertical and horizontal. The ice cubes covered under the sediment shine with ultramarine blue along the veins of the ice peaks... Besides hiking, ice climbing and even snowmobiling are popular tour projects, and local people provide professional ice equipment and experienced guides.
Iceland
Like this young land of Iceland, the Vatner Glacier also keeps a changing state. The heat of hot lakes and lava drives it to flow into warmer valleys at a rate of hundreds of meters per year. As a result, the collapsed ice tongue melts into an ice lake, which is the famous Jegusharon Ice Lake.
From the color of ice cubes, you can tell their approximate age, because the older the ice cubes, the more deep blue they are. After millions of years of movement, the water molecules inside the ice cube make all the cracks disappear, and the ice body becomes extremely hard, which can perfectly reflect the blue color of the sky and water. After years of melting and deposition, Jiegusharon Ice Lake has reached a depth of more than 100 meters, and its area is still expanding. It is reminiscent of the series of works "The Last Iceberg" taken by Camille Seaman, a famous American photographer, and the iceberg that gradually died out due to the rising temperature was recorded with a lens. Although her shooting location is in Greenland, the icebergs in her footage and the ones we see before our eyes face the same problems.
Iceland
Camille once said that when you see every iceberg, you will want to know how it was formed, how long it has been floating, and how many years it took to become what it is today... This feeling makes people have a deep respect-perhaps, this is the unique charm of icebergs, which makes people feel like traveling through time and space and witnessing the magnificence and pride of this planet in the wild period, just like Stein Steiner's poem "The lake surrounded by the wings of the sun/rising with the four-dimensional dream/empty mirror".
