Iceland, too

Top three images are of an ice cave we (my friend Rolf, making an appearance as a scale figure, is in the photos) explored. Technically it's the underside of the Solheimajokull glacier. The glacier appeared "sooty" (it looked alarmingly like New York City snow) because of the dirt and lava gravel it scoured as it advanced and retreated on the valley floor. The interior was shiny and at first completely opalescent grey but gradually opened into a small faceted cavern of milky pale and intense crystalline blue, lit from outside daylight. Fissures in the glacier's surface let in slices of sunlight and the melting ice created little rivulets (see last image of previous post). The thought that this massive structure of "water" was on top of me was sobering but made me feel giddy at the same time.

Images 4 and 5 are on a hike toward a lunar-like glacier whose name I can't recall. The photos look like black-and-white but they are not, as you can tell from the vaguely absinthe-colored water at right.

late addition---> The panorama of the long stretch of lava fields we drove through doesn't really belong with this group of photos. I realize how obsessive I can be: I was attempting to make thematic groupings but thats gone out the window because I'd never finish. Though the color certainly fits in. The "aloneness" was exhilarating.

The last image -- a Fragonard sky!--is at Jokullsarlon where a glacier is "calving" (I love that description) miniature icebergs that drift off serenely, to meet their demise in the ocean nearby. An abreviated life cycle.