Escape to Sorcerer Mountain

In the northwest of Iceland, the Vestfirðir reaches out into the Atlantic. Its countless fingers outstretched into the frigid ocean and between them the many fjords from which the region earned its name. Sparsely inhabited even today, this region has a particularly storied history as a place of refuge and exile for those accused of sorcery but who avoided the fiery fate that sometimes resulted^[1].

At what might be considered the wrist of this great outcropping of low sloped mountains and deep harbors sits the town of Hólmavík, home of Galdrasýning á Ströndum, the Museum of Sorcery & Witchcraft.

My interest in trips, such as this mid-November visit a few years ago, to the Westfjords is less centered on the magicks of old and more on the wonders of now and the peace and solitude that can be easily found in drives along the few roads that wind around the mountains and rivers and valleys and inlets. Weather conditions in winter can be brutal and the region is not infrequently cut off temporarily by passing storms. Even my knuckles, which have been wrapped around steering wheels in storms from Alaska to the Faroes to Mongolia to Norway, have gone white more than once in a sudden Icelandic wind and ice storm.

Though tourism constitutes a sizeable chunk of the nation’s economy, most visitor-oriented establishments further into the region than Hólmavík shut their doors for several months. The lost business of one loner with a camera racing his favored Jimny along Djúpvegur 61 is fine when it would cost far more to keep things open for the crowd of absolutely noone else passing by until the spring.

Still, there is never a shortage of attractions. Winding up and down through the passes between mountains formed by ancient volcanic flows that created this land in the middle of the ocean so far from everything else, hiking along frost and ice covered trails, and just appreciating every angle of every vista possible. Away from the crowds, away from the bustle and din of civilization, and (most wonderful of all) away from mosquitoes.

The solace of having the entire landscape to myself, and the lack of pressure from others that lets me move at my own slow and plodding pace, is what has brought me back here time and time again.