SNOW WINDSURFING IN ICELAND
The headlights of our car try in vain to break through the blizzard and the snowstorm that is raging outside. A waste of time since the action of the wipers has been useless for a long time.
It is 2 o'clock in the morning, ADDE our guide drives his vehicle with a master's hand. We are in the middle of nature in South Iceland when the snowstorm surprises us.
The navigator Loran guides us on the "Way points" recognized on the days of better weather and our two blind cars progress between the traps and the crevasses of the ground in complete safety. The special deflated tires provide a bearing surface 5 times greater than normal. As a result, it is as if we were equipped with 20 wheels and we are driving on powder snow one meter thick as on a normal road.
A three-hour flight from Paris, the change of scenery is total.
Addé talks over the radio with Philippe in the other car. Suddenly he stops. Stunned, we see him undress and get out of the car stark naked? ...
A white shape coming from behind passes in front of us and vanishes in the blizzard. The other guide joins Addé.... These Icelanders are completely crazy! Outside, it's snowing, it's minus thirty and they don't care about their hair and go for a little health walk in a wind to dehorn the oxen... plus you can't see at 50 cm.
Wedged into our polar expedition gear, we timidly get out and walk through the powder towards the voices we hear.
"Hoé Addé where are you?"
"Here! so what are you waiting for come take a bath"
More and more crazy, a bath by minus thirty! .... We move forward cautiously hearing a gurgling of water. Yet it's true, they are bathing... a river flows at our feet and its hot water reaches at least 35 to 40 ¯ C.
"So you come!"
We all find ourselves naked like Adam, the cold is biting and we quickly dive into water that smells sulphurous. A few meters away, the whitish halo of the headlights allows us to see the 5cm of snow that accumulates on the skulls of our guides and on ours at the same time.
It's still rather unusual to take a midnight swim in minus thirty under the snow with a volcano under your feet!...
Our expedition is off to a good start. We came here with the aim of carrying out a small photographic hunting trip on a "snowindsurf" and on a motorized paraglider evolving in the Icelandic scenery.
We are not here to achieve a feat or to break any speed, crossing, duration or endurance record. All the world records would also be easy to beat since there is none homologated.
No, our achievement is quite simply the passion and accomplishment of everyone in their specialty. It's a kind of little spark of creative madness every day that makes things move, progress and that we live intensely our life as sportsmen and adventurers.
Why Iceland? because snowindsurfing, as its name suggests, is practiced in the snow... and then because we too often think that the grass is always greener elsewhere, we set off for Iceland where the landscapes are apparently extraordinary ... and of course snowy.
Our guides explain to us that we are 150 meters from the Lamanalaugar refuge, the goal of our first stage. Indeed, after this little winter midnight bath we move into a refuge heated please with geothermal energy like 95% of the houses in this country.
We will stay like this for several days in the blizzard. No photos, no motorized paragliding, no snowindsurfing and of course no helicopter.
Iceland seems to want us to understand that here it is she who commands. One morning the veil is torn, a radiant sun floods the valley of Lanmanalaugar. We are entering a world where nature is breathtakingly wildly beautiful. Our refuge is built at the foot of a lava flow near the hot water river in which we bathed the first day.
Like a prisoner animal being freed, Eric jumps in his shoes, jumps on his surfboard and in two or three "pumping" strokes catches a gust of wind which carries him towards the bottom of the valley in a breathtaking "run". .
While "I reap" the scene with a 280mm telephoto lens, the second Eric feels his wings grow and prepares his motorized paraglider. Once again Iceland commands and our motorized paraglider will only do 2 flights during our entire stay. Turbulence and wind shifts are too great.
Eric the surfer begins a series of breathtaking maneuvers and comes back to us indulging in the luxury of taking advantage of a small hill to make a jump that will make the best Hawaiian funboarders jealous.
With the skidoo we decide to go up a slope on which it seems possible to pass killer loops? Confirmed Funboarder, I can't believe my ears. However, as a wise photographer, I put myself in position....
At full speed Éric tumbles down the slope. A small hiss of snow under the board mingles with the whistling of the relative wind in the sail. A trail of powder lights up for a moment against the light materializing the trajectory of the surf which swirls in the air. At the end of the loop, Eric uses the wing by "pumping" sharply to cushion the landing and go straight back down the slope, accelerating at full speed.
The raking light on the ridge in the background creates a gigantic wave effect...
My Leicas record the scene at 4 frames per second when a helicopter noise straight out of "Apocalypse Now" bursts in the valley. The Jet Ranger that we rented emerges without warning and like a big dragonfly that settles down, lands not far away in a cloud of powder.
We board and take off immediately. At this moment when the horizon recedes to make way for aerial vision, photography seems to me powerless to describe this landscape of the creation of the world which stretches out at our feet as far as the eye can see._cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
Here and there "solfatars" spit out jets of vapour, small white cottony columns which rise to about thirty meters and disperse in the atmosphere.
We are flying over an unknown planet. We are in a space capsule flying over a lunar and mineral world. The volcanic magic of Icelandic landscapes stretches as far as the eye can see. The country straddles the tectonic plates of the American and European continents.
The radio crackles in the intercom. On the ground, the motorized paraglider tries in vain to take off. He will remain grounded due to turbulence.
We drop Eric on a summit and we put ourselves in a waiting position with the helicopter a few meters from the slope.
I give some instructions to the pilot. After a few preparations Eric rushes down the slope at such a speed that the helicopter pilot can no longer follow him and lets himself be trapped in a downward spiral... The surf disappears from my Leica's viewfinder. We begin a turn facing the mountain so tight that the centrifugal force crushes us on our seat... The ground moves at high speed a few meters under our feet.
Suddenly the surf reappears in my line of sight, everything calms down and returns to normal. Eric has understood that he was going too fast and he is waiting for us halfway up the slope. I install a 180 mm on an R5 and I signal to him to start... clack clack clack, quietly this time, the light inscribes its story on the silver particles of the film.
In the evening at the refuge we comment on the events of the day. Eric the pilot of the Jet Pocket is inconsolable. Our Icelandic friends are preparing a traditional meal for us which, it seems, was the delight of the Vikings: testicles of sheep marinated in curdled milk and shark fins in vodka. All of this tastes absolutely abominable!
Our Icelandic friends eat without flinching and wash it all down with vodka. The shark has spent a few months in I don't know what horse urine sauce and it gives off a strong taste of ammonia... we chew without much enthusiasm and politely reject any offer to take it again, explaining that it's delicious but we're not very hungry... Magnous and Addé laugh at their good turn. What job did I choose? After snake delicacies in popular China, here I am eating rotten shark Viking style in Iceland. This deserves a test article in Gault & Millau...
The next day, low clouds covered the entire area. On the snow there is no relief, no landmarks, no more play of light and shadow, everything is white. We won't be taking pictures today. In Iceland, you should never make a plan, the Icelanders will tell you.
We bend to the will of nature and we take advantage of the first thinning to evacuate everyone by helicopter to the South coast. The cars we will join later. The weather forecast announces for the next day a day of good weather.
In the early morning, we take off again. The air is so pure that visibility extends over several hundred kilometres. In the distance the Vatnajokull glacier shimmers in the rising sun.
We look forward to an extraordinary shooting day.
After a little overview, we choose a summit whose profile is ideal to organize another series of surf looping shots.
Barely posed, I inspect the premises with Eric. Here at altitude, a light cold wind blows from the North. We return to the helicopter. Nose in my bags, I prepare my cameras and do not realize anything. When I finish, I realize that we are in the clouds. More visibility, more light, white day, nothing! and damn what a damn country!
We will remain like this all day blocked without being able to take off.
I suspected what was happening and it was confirmed when by chance we established radio contact with a plane passing over the area. Its pilot informs us that the weather is superb all over Iceland and that he sees a cloud, only one hanging on the summit of the Hekla volcano (1491m) where we are.
Hang-gliding pilot, I understand the phenomenon very well: a cold wind blows from the North at altitude. At a lower level, a warmer wind comes from the South, from the sea and goes up on the foothills of the volcano on which we are placed. The warm sea air condenses on contact with the cold air masses and creates this cloud which blocks us.
Although we were sure to see this phenomenon disappear at the end of the day, we could not help thinking that we would have to spend the night there....
We had to break the ice on the blades of our helicopter with an ice ax before we could take off in the evening... the whole day was ruined.
We were nevertheless able to rest and take advantage of the light of the setting sun to take some images of solfataras and surfing against the backdrop of the sunset. The light won't last long. As I quickly record as many photos as possible, I signal to Jean-Philippe to call the helicopter pilot and ask him to land nearby to pick us up .
The work finished, I board and then I feel a small jolt, the helicopter sinks slightly. One, two, three, other people come up and each time we feel the same. Suddenly, when the pilot who had descended comes back up, we suddenly sink 50cm, Addé opens the door and tries to evacuate. With one hand on the shoulder, I catch him in time and block him... his dazzling reflexes are conditioned by a few good memories. He's jumped out of a falling vehicle once or twice. But this time, if one of us descends before the other, the risk of creating a point of force on one end of the skates could be fatal.
"Calm down, let's all go down together!"
Fear in our stomachs, we all leave the helicopter at the same time and walk away as if we were walking on eggshells without wanting to break them.
The pilot remains alone and starts his machine. Everything is going well and to our great relief we see the helicopter take off and rest a few dozen meters further on. We came very close to a catastrophe if the snow bridge on which we were resting had collapsed completely.
At best we were all stuck, at worst we disappeared into a crevasse without a trace...
We are heading south. From volcanoes to hills, from mounds to mountains or glaciers, a pure and wild landscape spreads out under our feet. The last light of the falling day glows with a thousand lights on the horizon. The tops light up with a last ray of light. The ground regains its white and cold color.
Iceland is a country very close to a nature that makes no concessions. You must not make the slightest mistake. Addé tells us on the intercom the story of this tourist who took his bath in the hot river near the Lanmanalaugar refuge. In order to impress his friends, he suddenly got out of the water to get on a skidoo and climb a nearby slope in a few minutes. The machine broke down at the top and wouldn't restart. Coming back on foot in snow several meters thick, naked as a worm, takes eternity...
By the time Addé gets dressed, rushes to the refuge, jumps in his car, finds the other skidoo which was moving at the bottom of the valley, comes back at full speed and goes up to look for the imprudent half dead from cold, stuck in mid slope, buried in snow up to the belt.
Iceland knows how to offer patient people moments of great intensity and great beauty. The country will keep us in suspense throughout the rest of our stay, delivering little by little the short moments where we can work and carry out our report.
Our return to France went off without a hitch and being used to the extreme cold gave us the impression of arriving in Paris in the middle of summer when it was the end of winter.
Alain Guillou
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SNOW WINDSURF IN ICELAND
Photo credit : Copyright Alain Guillou. Photos made with Leica.
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The team was
Alain Guillou _cc781905-5cde -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ : Photographer and organizer of the expedition
Eric Durand _cc781905-5cde -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ : Surfing
Eric Sauzed _cc781905-5cde -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ : Motorized paraglider Pilot
Jean Philippe Roger : Assistant