DEEP INSIDE A GLACIER

Thousands of years passed, blizzards howled over Iceland’s Katla Volcano in whiteouts that blocked out time and place. Uncountable snowflakes fell, dissolving the landscape. Immense compression squeezed the forming ice, forcing out air bubbles and creating a material of intense clarity and glacial plasticity. Gravity took over as the ice accumulated, and glacial ice flowed like a river that ignored time, down the volcano’s hidden ridges, scraping and sculpting the mountain, which was now hundreds of feet below the gleaming ice cap.

When we arrived at Kötlujökull glacier, a lobe of Mýrdalsjökull Glacier, we saw ice that was thousands upon thousands of years old. It ended abruptly at the glacial terminus, which was a sheer wall of ice over 100 feet high. Our small group entered a cave in the glacier, created by a flowing glacial stream and polished by air currents. These photographs represent the incredible sculpted and colored walls of the inner sanctum of the glacier.

Passage into an ice cave in Mýrdalsjökull Glacier on Katla Volcano

A melted vertical shaft, called a moulin or glacier mill, was the most dramatic feature of our ice cave tour

Another view looking straight up the moulin toward the sky; imagine trying to climb out, even with ice climbing equipment!

Bands of scalloped ice in the moulin, with the different colors representing changing conditions when the ice formed and compressed

Polished ice surfaces approaching the moulin opening

Ice fantasy fringed with icicles inside the ice cave

Wall of melting ice and icicles, reflecting the blue sky outside

The highlight of our journey was entering a narrow cavern in the ice and following it into the glacier until we were blocked by a wall of ice. Here Karen Rentz is inside an ice cave channel, formed seasonally by running water, her headlamp and mine illuminating the ice

The ice channel curved and twisted through the glacier

Fanciful textures and patterns of ice, rich with glacial aquamarine coloring

Icicles at entrance to the ice cave, with hardly a hint of what awaits within

The glacial terminus, which we approached and then entered through a small opening

Karen Rentz using rope and crampons to ascend to cave entrance

Adventurers walking toward an ice cave entrance. If you go to Iceland and wish to explore an ice cave, make sure you spend the extra money and go on a small tour led by a leader driving a SuperJeep (the Icelandic name for any really rugged 4WD vehicle). Some bus tours pack people into a large cave along with hundreds of others, and the experience is that of a herd.

Mýrdalssandur outwash plain looking out from the ice cave entrance, Hafursey Mountain. This is where part of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was filmed.

Dramatic entrance to an ice cave in a lobe of Mýrdalsjökull Glacier

We visited Iceland in March of 2018, with the intent of seeing the Aurora Borealis, which we did on three nights, and the South Coast, where these glacier pictures were taken. We also wanted to experience the Westfjords region in winter, which was also spectacular. We rented an all wheel drive Subaru so we could have more freedom of movement and spontaneity than a bus tour allows, and we stayed in modest AirBnBs to keep down the costs. Except for a couple of meals at restaurants, we ate simply, buying from small grocery stores (and Costco!). Our biggest splurges were for two guided ice cave tours, in which a driver and guide using a SuperJeep 4wd vehicle takes visitors to really spectacular places that would otherwise not be accessible. Well worth it!

Most of my work is available as prints on metal or cotton rag paper. To see a large selection of my work go to leerentz.com.