Laugavegur Trail | Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers

Mar 8

Summer dreaming…

So we have now allocated almost all of our volunteer places and summer preparations are well underway. After all the planning and interviews this winter, it is quite hard to believe that we will be back in Langidalur and setting up camp in about eight weeks time!

As well as recruiting the team this winter, we have been busy working on a few changes to the programme for next season. One of the most important new developments is the establishment of our new “short-term placements” so that volunteers can join the teams for 2 weeks and take part in the ongoing projects. This season, for the first time, we are recruiting all of our volunteers ourselves.

Another new development that we are very excited about, is the establishment of our new “long-range trail team” that will work on remote sites in Thórsmörk and along the Laugavegur Trail. The use of wilderness camps will allow our teams to access several new worksites on sections of the trails that have seen little repair work in the past. To reduce travel time, our teams will stay for up to three nights at wilderness camps before returning to the relative comfort of the Langidalur base camp. Long-range places will be offered to the team as projects are planned, they will be optional and will of course depend on suitable weather conditions.

The Langidalur base camp will open again in May. We will have a couple of weeks to get everything ready and several improvements are planned. The most significant of these is setting up drying facilities for our clothing and equipment. This was a huge challenge for everyone last season (especially in June) and every effort is being made to find a good solution for this summer. Ummm… dry boots!

Our challenge is to have everything ready for June 1st and we are very much looking forward to getting started.

Still waiting for a place…
We will be reviewing our team allocations on March 15^th to find out how many last minute places are available. We will then contact everyone on the waiting list to let them know about possible places. We would like to complete the groups and finalise the team by April 1^st. Thanks for your patience.

Mar 6

Þórsmörk Team News on Facebook

We would like to invite our new volunteers, and everyone who has worked with us in Thórsmörk and Goðaland, to join our Þórsmörk Team News group on Facebook.

Feb 21

Our 2013 photo gallery

This brings back some good memories of last summer…

We have published several albums of photos taken by our volunteers last season and they can be found on our Flickr page. The new albums include pictures of our teams and their work as well as photos from their adventures on the Laugavegur hike.

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the albums and if any of our volunteers would like to add their pictures, please get in touch.

Jan 2

Volunteers wanted! Six-week placements in Iceland this summer…

We would like to begin the New Year with the launch of our new summer programme. We have now begun the search for volunteers to join us for six-weeks as part of our Wilderness Management Programme. Our team’s main tasks are maintaining hiking trails in the area, trail mapping, survey work, GPS data collection and a special erosion repair project in badly damaged areas close to the fresh lava from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

The summer programme will largely build on the success of last season but there are a couple of important changes. The main one of these is the inclusion of a new “long-distance trail team” that will focus on remote sites within Thórsmörk and Goðaland as well as new sites along the famous Laugavegur hiking trail. Participants will move between these three projects during their placements. Our teams will once again be hosted at the base camp at Langidalur by our friends from the Iceland Touring Association (Ferðafélag Íslands).

We have once again included a hiking week (week 4 of the placements) to enable participants to complete the hike from Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk and explore the area we are working in. Our preparations are now well underway and we are very much looking forward to another Thórsmörk summer!