In 1953 a group of British scientists explored the west area of Icelandic Highlands with the aim of studying and mapping glaciers. One of the glaciers that the Cambridge Langjökull Expedition studied at the time was disappeared in 2019. Seventy-one years after that scientific expedition, Montanus duo circumnavigated the Langjökull glacier and filmed the fantastic views of the second-largest ice cap of Iceland that is sadly set to disappear over the next 100 years.
In 2018 the Montanus duo crossed the island from north to south through the most remote part of Highlands creating the ‘Iceland Divide’, one of the most popular bikepacking route in Iceland. They decided to go back again in the land of fire and ice when they learned about the 1953 Cambridge Langjökull Expedition, a scientific expedition consisting of geographers, geologists and biologists with the aim of studying and mapping glaciers of central western Iceland. The British scientists studied and mapped the Okjökull glacier, a small icecap in the southwest of the Icelandic Highlands, that in August 2019 was declared the first glacier to have retreated until it no longer existed.
Langjökull, the second largest glacier of Iceland, is going to go the same way, due to warm winters with little snowfall followed by even warmer summers. Over the course of the past 150 years the ice volume of Langjökull decreased from 248 km³ to under 170 km³ by now and its area from 1100 km² to 800 km². Within a hundred years the ice cap is very likely to melt away completely.
Learned the news, Montanus duo decided to circumnavigate the Langjökull creating a route to give a tribute to the second-largest ice cap of Iceland filming its spectacular views before it disappears completely. They named the route ‘Odin’s Eye’ in honor of the All-father in the Norse of Pantheon, that sacrificed one of his eyes for his relentless quest for wisdom. The tales tells the eye is buried deep with the glacier, in the heart of the icy landscapes of Iceland.
