Wilderness Management Team | Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers

Oct 9

Takk fyrir sumarið! – Thank you for the summer!

Finally we have hung up the orange waterproofs and packed away the rock bars as the end of our project season has arrived. The volunteer camp has closed and the first snow has arrived in Langidalur. It has been a great season for our new programme and we would like to thank everyone who has helped to make it such a success. Together our teams completed over 200 weeks of practical work throughout the area, which greatly exceeded our targets despite the challenging weather conditions.

Our main work included returning to projects that were began last season including sites on Valahnúkur, the Langidalur/Húsadalur valley trail and the Básar Circle but our additional teams also allowed us to take on new tasks further afield including work on the Tindfjall Circle as well as a flight of timber framed steps and a large area of erosion control work(drainage and reseeding) on the Fimmvörðuháls trail. Our actual work area was then enlarged beyond Thórsmörk and Goðaland with our first volunteer project at Emstrur in August.

We would like to thank everyone who joined us for our first season; our very own Wilderness Management teams, groups from WorkingAbroad, our friends from the Icelandic volunteer group Sjá (Sjálfboðaliðasamtök um náttúruvernd) and summer staff from the Forest Service (Skógrækt ríkisins). We very much enjoyed working with you and the results from all the great work that you all did speaks for themselves.

We would especially like to thank our “operations team” (the group leaders, project organisers, returning volunteers and friends) who brought the programme to life and kept things moving so well all summer despite all the challenges – we could not have done it without you!

We hope you all enjoyed your time with us in Thórsmörk and look forward to working with you again. After a short break, we now begin preparations for next season… there are lots of new projects and opportunities planned and full details of placements for 2014 will be published here soon.

Oct 1

Iceland Weekly Report – Weeks 4, 5 and 6

Cutting forest materials for our trail repair work in August
– From a blog by one of our team.

Leaf whispers

Since the weather improved and the sun begun to shine in the beginning of week 4 of my training period, time is flying by really fast and there’s not enough time for me to write about events as they happen. In the past weeks I’ve been doing a lot of different things, it seems like I learn a new thing every day. Here is a short summary of my activities:

Week 4:

In the 4th week of my training period I’ve learned how to drive different tractors and make firewood with a splitting machine. I’ve begun to learn practical work with the chainsaw (from the thinning champion of Iceland!) and chainsaw maintenance. I’ve also been driving the pick-up truck a lot and did some brush cutting. On the weekend I’ve stayed in Thjorsardalur and helped with various tasks (collecting fares, maintenance etc.) on the Forest service’s campsite.

A video of…

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Aug 31

The last group leaves Langidalur…

The departure of seven of our wilderness management volunteers yesterday marks the end of our group work this summer. Additional last minute difficulties caused by the Krossá and Hvanná rivers meant that departure was brought forward by one day to make sure that nobody would miss their flight home.

We would like to thank the team for all their hard work over the last six weeks and hope that everyone left with some good memories of their time with us and our adventures together in Thórsmörk, Goðaland and Emstrur.

We look forward to working with you again next summer!

Aug 24

Autumn arrives…

As the first signs of Autumn appear around us in Thórsmörk our programme is coming to an end. The last group of volunteers have one more week before they head home leaving a small team to pack down the Langidalur camp in September.

Our team is now working on finishing the last major projects of the summer which include a flight of timber framed steps on the Fimmvörðuháls trail and sections of stone retainment wall, gravel drains and new timber steps on the main trail to Húsadalur. Both projects are progressing very well and if the weather is kind to us, all the work will be completed this season.

Our last big project of the season will be a trip together with all our remaining volunteers for a long-range project planned at Emstrur with Ferðafélag Íslands… it is very exciting as it our first task on the Laugavegur trail outside Thórsmörk.