YOU CAN’T QUIT.........UNTIL YOU’VE
SNOWMOBILED IN ICELAND
March 24th – 31st
                                                                                 By Audrey Decker

As one half of a snowmobile tour company; Decker Sno-Venture Tours, I’ve had the enviable opportunity of snowmobiling in a lot of great snow areas.  But of every place that my winter loving husband has taken me – the magic island of Iceland stands out as the most impressive of all my snowmobile experiences and the only place that I never grow tired of visiting.  Iceland is like no other place you’ve ever been.  It’s called the “Land of Fire and Ice”.  It’s called a contradiction of a country that is partially covered, year round, by massive ice glaciers, with an environment warmed by the gentle breezes of the Gulf Stream and a great abundance of rivers and waterfalls.

To go, to Iceland to snowmobile you would board one of the impeccably clean aircraft of Icelandair.  A six and a half our flight later has you arriving at the modern terminal in Keflavik.

On the bus ride to the capital city of Reykjavik it’s easy to believe that you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.  There’s no snow.  The terrain is nothing but rocks and shale covered in some places by a heavy brown colored moss.  A land for Sherman tanks, maybe,  but not a place to ride a snowmobile.

Then, almost without warning, the world outside your window is entirely white.  Jutting out of the giant whiteness are irregular shaped mounds and pillars of jet black chunks of lava, fused by the activity of a century old volcano, into a kind of ice trimmed “South Dakota Badlands”.

As you survey the scene from outside your bus, there is this great expanse of snow and ice, for as far as you can see.  The only obstacle to seeing forever, are hills and those surprising formations of lava.  Another surprise is the temperature, it’s between 35-45 degrees.  Almost too warm to snowmobile?  No.  Perfect to snowmobile, as long as you apply some sunscreen.

More surprises.  The snow under your boots is not “mushy”.  You take your assigned rental sled for a short test ride – amazing, the snow maintains that beautiful consistency; firm and forgiving all at the same time.

Your group takes off, and you fall in line.  As the machines, spread out, you have the strange sensation of watching a line of ants, inch across a never ending vista.  Everything seems to shrink in the vast openness of this land.  There are no measurements for perspective – just this unnaturally beautiful white world, with no end.

You’ll climb hills that look deceptively small.  With no trees to impede you, and that tractable snow to help you, you climb so high so easily, that you’ll register a second thought before descending.

All to soon, it’ll be time for lunch.  No ordinary pit stops here.  You might enjoy an oversize box lunch under the sun, or perhaps a buffet, complete with hot soup, will be delivered to some rendezvous spot.

A swim could well be in the day’s schedule.  Not in a chlorine treated, cement enclosed body of water, but rather a river that you’ve seen for miles.  sending up plumes of steam.  An un occupied house, that’s used by snowmobilers and skiers will be a place to get snow suits off and swimming suits on.  The trip to the river edge is a swift one – remember, you are now clad in “water wear”, jacket and boots.  Then it’s another surprise as you test the water – its thirty degrees above “warm” and the river bottom is so hot you can’t rest your feet on it.  Healing waters? You bet.  Because you’ll never feel the cool air on you dash back to your clothes.  Nor will you ever forget your swim in the middle of a glacier.  Your Kodak clicking friends will insure that.

When you get back onto your snowmobile, you’ll feel like you can ride forever, and you never knew that you were such a GOOD snowmobiler.  There’s no where you can’t go, and you never get stuck.  No matter how many days you spend riding, there’s always something new to see, and each day is somehow different.  That’s the magic of Iceland.  Top of the World or Snowmobile Heaven, you decide.  You’ll never forget this riding.  All other snowmobiling will suffer by comparison.

Just when you start to really appreciate your new found riding prowess, it’s time to move to Iceland’s biggest city – the Capitol, Reykjavik.  Man really does not live by snowmobile alone, and when in a foreign country, you should soak up some culture.

The seaport town of Reykjavik is a combination of old and new, with most of it new.  The oldest buildings in Reykjavik are barely two hundred years old, and date from a time that the Capitol city was just a village with a few hundred inhabitants.  For those of you with gourmet tastes, there are more than eighty restaurant choices.  Only the faint hearted will choose cheeseburgers at the Hard Rock Cafe, over the excitement of Puffin or Whale steak at the Lamb and the Wolf, or the unbelievable Icelandic Haddock, smothered in cream sauce, floating with tiny shrimp, found at the little family cafe; Pots & Pans.  Icelandic woolens, jewelry made by Icelandic silversmiths, and unique ceramic pieces, will intrigue the best shopping aficionado. 

More popular for the locals, than the restaurants or the night clubs, are the huge city pools.  All fed by that same geo thermal water we tested on the glacier.  Here in town it provides the hot, hot water for the community pools and hot tubs, that every Icelander enjoys frequently and without regard to age or status.  These are the hubs of Icelandic society, and everyone goes there.

Icelandair can fly you back home, but you’ll never be able to “leave” this excitingly different country.  Iceland will haunt you forever with her beauty, her uniqueness, her marvelous people, and her “great snowmobiling”.

You owe it to yourself to snowmobile in Iceland, before you “hang up your helmet and park your sled.”

INCLUDED:  All lodging, all meals while snowmobiling, all guiding, airport transfers, snowmobile rentals, roundtrip air fare to Iceland.
NOT INCLUDED:  Meals while not snowmobiling, gas and oil in rental sleds, airport taxes and any items not specifically listed.
PRICE:  $5,450.00 per person (double occupancy); single occupancy add $400.00.
AVERAGE DAILY MILEAGE:  75 - 110 miles

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