I often feel that the memories that come from different places around the world are etched into my mind with distinct colors. This is to say, some places, like the Olympic coast in Washington, are in my mind in shades of green. Others are remembered in tones of orange or purple. Iceland lives in my mind as shades of blue.
There's the ever present sense that you're moving through land carved by ice, always building towards the glacial peaks that line it's interior. The folding, cracking, and evolving of the landscapes is intoxicating.
I've visited Iceland more than once, but on each prior occasion, grey dominated my thoughts; unrelenting rain, ash and pumice lined mountains, silt filled rivers. This time, though, it's the memory of ice, moulins, waterfalls and aurora that built my feeling of pristine blue. Blue to me is inspiring. It's the color you find deep in old ice or shimmering on the surface of lagoons.
Now, to take a breath between my emotional musings about Iceland and the color blue, I couldn't get enough of how perfectly at home the classic Hyperlite white looked. The Daybreak and the Elevate spent so much time getting worn down on the black sand of the southern coast, soaked in the glacial melt of the sub-highland glaciers, and frozen under the chill of an aurora filled freezing sky.
It will always inspire me to spend time around the glow of old ice, whether it's while alpine climbing or while wandering the meltwater of glaciers through their freshly carved caves. I'm sure one or two of you might share these same feelings.
Thanks for reading and have fun out there!
Gorgeous photos! Obviously the pack looks great in the nordic landscape, but my favorite is probably the waterfall. The images combined with your musings remind me of the color palette project the national park instagram pages did a few years ago.
