Icelandic Insight - Page 3
May 15, 2008 @ 9:25 AM
Geiri Hiking
7. You sent me some links to your MySpace page and other sites so I was able to take a sneak peak into your life. There’s a lot of pictures/videos of you and your family, with your daughter snowboarding and the proud father looking after her. Obviously snowboarding is important to the whole home crew?
My girlfriend Dögg and 3.5 year old daughter Lena Rut are my biggest inspirations in life. Snowboarding has given me so much over the years that it just felt natural to introduce them to it. I also try to spend a lot of my free time snowboarding but want to spend it with them as well, so it also feels natural to invite them along for the ride when I can. Teaching my little one to snowboard has also taken my snowboarding to a new level, I just love being on the snow with her and seeing how much fun she has with it. This is her first season riding and she has definitely been turning some heads on the slopes. I am just happy that it is something we can do together. I am proud of both my girls and our family that is probably why I am so good at updating my blog, flickr, myspace and youtube with family stuff!
8. Could you ever imagine living elsewhere or is Iceland where you always wanna be based at?
The Icelandic word for stupid is: “heimskur”. It translates directly to someone who stays too much at home and does not explore the outside world. The viking high code (Hávamál) also says: “who travels widely needs his wits about him, the stupid should stay at home”. So, yes, I love having Iceland as a base, I am proud of my background and I couldn’t think of a better place to raise our daughter but I also love travelling. When I was a child and teenager I lived 4 years in England, 4 years in France and 2 summers in Spain. It is definitely something I want my family to experience. I think it is necessary for everybody to travel, expand their horizons and experience different things. It opens your mind for so many things. The best thing about travelling though is coming back home. Iceland will always be my home and my base in life. There are few things better than returning to Iceland after a long trip and taking that first breath of fresh air and feeling the weather on your face when you step out from Keflavík airport.
9. Surfing in Iceland sounds pretty far off, but I read that the waves exist and are rideable?
Being an island, Iceland is surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean on all sides. There are some pretty good surf spots all over and we get some cool waves coming in from all sides. The surf scene is pretty hardcore. I would say around 25-30 people are surfing all year around but the scene has been growing steadily in the last couple of years. So you are never going to be fighting anyone for the waves up here except maybe a curious seal or two. There are some cool spots around, for example around the Snæfells glacier peninsula. If the conditions are right you can shred the glacier and go surfing all in one day. I really want to get more into surfing, I have only tried it a handful of times here in Iceland. It hasn’t really been surfing but more avoiding drowning. It’s one of the scariest things I have tried, defiently room for a lot of improvement on my half. I have heard pro surfers that have come up here describing the breaks, swells and wave conditions to that of Hawaii. If you think about it Hawaii and Iceland have a lot in common geographically. Both are volcanic Islands situated in the middle of nowhere so there are bound to be some similarities. The ocean is a “little” bit colder up here but if you have a good wetsuit on its does not really matter. So maybe we can say Iceland is the Hawai of the north and you definetly cant go snowboarding in Hawaii!
10. And as the last word you are free to give a little marketing speech why we should all book the next flight to Reykjavik and come check the local snow stash?
The Icelandic tourist board has done a pretty good job of advertising Iceland as a hip, cool, beautiful, pure, natural, exciting, strong, unique, picturesque, geothermal, volcanic, party, absolutely brilliant must place to visit. So I wont go down that road with you. But I can tell you that if you want a different snowboard experience in untouched lunar-like landscapes riding untouched lines that end in the North Atlantic ocean then hop on a plane and ask for Geiri when you land.
Not that we needed that marketing speech anyways… it’s enough when you check out the views this country offers and how nice the people there seem to be! I could think of worse things to do than hiking & riding glaciers for a day and then jumping into a hot spring while admiring raw, beautiful nature. How about you?
For more info on ISA, local resorts, events and so on, go to http://www.bigjump.is
