Ferðafélag Íslands | Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers

Sep 20

Memories of the summer… hiking Laugavegurinn

A “hiking week” has been included in our 6-week projects since we began in 2013. The aim of this week is to provide an opportunity for the volunteer teams to complete the Laugavegurinn hike from Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk and to hike through their work areas. This summer however, challenging weather conditions meant that things did not quite go to plan …

Because of the late snow in the highlands, the first team which was scheduled to hike in June, was redirected to Skaftafell where they were hosted by our friends at Vatnajökull National Park during their holiday week. The second team went in August but ended the hike at Botnar (Emstrur) because of stormy weather in the area. Luckily though, the team was able to return to Botnar to complete the hike during our final long-range project which included replacing 180 way-markers along 18km of the trail.

Picture of our second team setting off from Lanmannalaugar (August, 2015).

Aug 29

To our volunteers…

As the summer comes to an end, most of our volunteers completed their placements and headed home today. Despite a cold and late start, our third season has been very successful with trail repair projects completed on sites from Morinsheiði to Hvanngil.

We would like to thank everyone who worked with our teams on the trails this summer. We hope that you have good memories of Thórsmörk and that you enjoyed your time with us working on the mountains and living in the forest. Thank you all for your hard work, support and friendship.

It is now time for us to take down the tents and pack the tools…. but maybe just one more campfire before we finish.

See you next season!

Jun 27

Training week at Langidalur

Each season, we begin with a week of induction and training for our Operations Team volunteers. The aim is to prepare them for their role which includes leading the teams, organizing our camps and the day management of the programme.

Tony Newby returned to Langidalur to run the training week for our 6 Operations Team volunteers (From UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand). The week focused on team leadership skills, safety planning and practical skills training… with a few group exercises and games involving blindfolds thrown in.

A big thank you to Tony for a great week!

May 15

Back in business… with this season’s first volunteer team at Langidalur

Preparing for a day of challenging weather…

May 8

Our third birthday!

Preparation work at the volunteer camp stopped briefly on Thursday, so that we could celebrate the volunteer programme’s third birthday with chocolate cake and coffee (a welcome break from working on the roof of the volunteer hut in freezing cold temperatures).

Established by the Icelandic Forest Service (Skógrækt ríkisins) in 2012 as a pilot project, the programme now recruits, trains and leads volunteers on trail maintenance and nature conservation projects throughout Thórsmörk, Goðaland and beyond. In 2014, over 240 weeks of volunteer work were completed.

We would like to thank our volunteers and friends for all their hard work and support over these three amazing years.

(The cake was extremely good…)