Nov 1
One of our most ambitions and challenging projects has been the building of timber steps close to Kattarhryggur on the Fimmvörðuháls trail. Work began in 2013 and continued with a second phase last summer.
There is more work to do and we look forward to returning to the site, but we have collected together these albums of pictures to tell the story so far…
We are putting together an album of pictures of volunteers who joined our team last summer. Was there really that much sunshine?
The first half of our summer ended when our team of long-term volunteers and second group of 2-week volunteers recently completed their projects.
The team gathered for a last evening together at the Langidalur base camp before heading home. We would like to thank everyone who joined us, for their hard work and for coping with all that rain! We hope you are all now adjusting to life back home with dry feet, hot showers and real beds… We miss you all!
Jul 6
Just five weeks ago our first long-term volunteer team of the season began their adventures with us in Thórsmörk. Since joining us, they have completed over 60 weeks of repair work on the trails and have definitely left their mark on the place.
In addition to all that work, the team “enjoyed” quite a challenging hike from Landmannalaugar due to the stormy weather. We would like to thank our colleagues and friends at the Ferðafélag Íslands huts along the trail, for looking after our volunteers so well during those stormy days… for the shelter and for their support. It was really good to meet everyone safely back at the Langidalur base camp.
Now we are looking forward to the return of the sunshine as in the group’s final week we are heading north to new project sites close to Emstrur.
This week we have been training our volunteer team leaders and preparing them for the season ahead.
Five leaders from our operations team joined us for a week of induction and training which included helping to set up the Langidalur base camp and organise food and equipment for the teams arriving in June. The group tent is now up, the hut is ready and the new drying room is nearing completion. The Langidalur base camp is now ready for business!
The leaders course was organised and presented by Tony Newby and hosted by Ferðafélag Íslands at Langidalur. Tony helped to establish our training programme last season and has a long history of training volunteer team leaders in both the UK and Iceland. The course has been developed specifically for our programme and it addresses the challenges faced by our team leaders and volunteers, living, working and hiking in the area through the summer months.
Now we are ready…
Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers 