Volunteers wanted | Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers

Jan 29

Summer in Thórsmörk

Although the summer still seems far away, we have been busy planning projects and putting together our 2014 team. We began the search for volunteers at the start of January but the response has been so good that we have now allocated most of the places. We were overwhelmed by the number of enquires and applications that we have received and it has been a real challenge for us to choose from so many good applicants.

We expect to fill the remaining places by the end February so if you would still like to join us this summer, please go ahead and apply as soon as possible. Full details are available on our volunteer opportunities page.

This season we are responsible for recruiting all of our volunteers directly and we will also soon be publishing details of additional short-term (2-week) places for this summer. Full details of these will be available here on 7th February.

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!

Oct 25

Wild. Man. volunteers in 2014

We are delighted to announce that our wilderness management programme has received a green light for 2014!

Following the team’s successes last summer, plans are now well underway for two projects that will run next season. The work of our wilderness management teams focuses on trail construction and maintenance as well as erosion control projects. In addition volunteers are involved in GPS data collection throughout the area as part of our ongoing Pathfinder mapping project. On the fourth week of the placements, participants have the opportunity to hike the famous Laugurvegur trail from Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk.

Placements on the wilderness management team are for 6 weeks although shorter placements will once again be available for returning volunteers. The programme is supported by Iceland’s Forest Service (Skógrækt ríkisins) and our partners and there is no participation fee.

The projects will start on June 2^nd and July 21^st. The first week is used for training and induction and this takes place at our base camp in Langidalur. After completing that, participants are divided into small teams who then work on a series of different projects throughout the area swapping between locations. Teams will spend time on projects organized from our base camp as well as the new wilderness camps that we are establishing to enable us to work on more remote trails.

Full programme details and an online application form will be posted here shortly, and we will begin our search for volunteers in November.