Wilderness Management Team | Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers

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!

Jan 2

Gleðilegt nýtt àr – Happy New Year and very best wishes for 2014!

Dec 24

Gleðileg jól – Happy Christmas!

We would like to wish all our volunteers and friends a very Happy Christmas!

2013 truly has been an exceptional year for our little programme and we would like to thank you all for your hard work and support. We could not have done it without you!

Very best Christmas wishes,

Dec 7

Thorsmork Trail Team

From one of our team…

mattocksandmountainbikes

So this post has been brewing for a while, it’s a bit of a long one and I’ve been too busy to get around to writing it but it’s finally here!

A view of Rjupnafetl above the Troll Church.

View original post 1,642 more words

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.