Iceland, Day 5: Landmannalaugar-Hrafntinnusker

The weather did clear up, just for an hour or so. The warden warned us that it could be raining in the mountains. She had a big problem with Jiyoung’s clothes, and told us to have the warden at Hrafntinnusker call her when we get there. She had a situation last night, where two French girls almost got lost, soaked wet, found their way to the hut at 10pm, completely distressed.
But when we headed out around 10am, the weather was sunny and rather hot. We walked through all kinds of volcanic landscapes—rainbow mountains, steaming rivers, glittering black rocks. When we went high up the mountain, the weather changed drastically. Wind was blowing crazy and it soon started raining, too. Rain was more like horizontal icy mist and it often turned into hail or snow. But the hut at Hrafntinnusker showed up soon enough because we finished the hike in 3 hours even though it was supposed to take 4 or 5 hours.
While we got settled and had lunch, the weather became even more atrocious. It was snowing really hard—horizontally, still—and it wouldn’t melt away anymore. The fog and clouds became thicker, and we were so glad that we started at 10, not 11. When we arrived at the hut, we were the first guests there, but because of the weather, campers and hikers gave up their outdoorsy plans and poured in eventually.