I might as well admit that my pictures have gotten totally messed up to the point I can pretty much only guess at which day they were taken. Plus the group as a whole shared pics which has made it even more confusing since as I imported them it used the import date to save them rather than the day they were taken. So I'm trying to batch them up a bit.
This is Annie and her mom Pat from Toronto. Pat was our only "casualty" during the trip. In the middle of the week she was mounting and her saddle slipped landing her on her butt. She sat out our short ride day and the next day but pulled up her big girl panties (disguised as padded bike shorts) and rode the last two days. They are both very tall making the horses look tiny!
Sometimes the vista was so wide and flat you felt like you could see forever.
Sometimes selfies are hard to do on horseback! We all look so incredibly bundled up but I think this was one of the really windy days where keeping your ears covered was mandatory.
There are rivers everywhere with fresh, clean water coming off the glaciers.
This is just outside the first "off the ranch" place we stayed pretty much in the middle nowhere. These are sheep sorting pens. The guest house we stayed in (picture further down) was fairly rustic and I could see how it would work great for a bunch of "ranch hands" to bunk there. Coming out to this in the morning made the rustic place worth it.
When we stayed at the farm, they had a proper restaurant with great food. This was salmon with rice and roasted radishes. Amazing. The bread basket is empty because their dinner rolls were super yummy!
Riding down this long trail we could see the ocean in the distance.
This is Sara, our lead guide from Germany. There were 16 of us riding including the guides but we rode with 20 horses. Sara always had two at her hip.
From a distance these meadows looked like the perfect place for a long gallop but very often they were threaded with big rocks and it wasn't safe to venture too far off the trail. Soft moss could be covering a huge rock making it look like a nice place to land but not safe at all.
Four of our Wild Women. The two on the left had barely ever rode. Three of the four are Canadian.
Rachel and Vicki are mother/daughter from Michigan. They were our roomies when we were in the "dorm rooms" at the farm.
This was the "bunk house" we stayed in the first night off the farm. The doors on the right side of the building opened to bunk rooms. The "living/kitchen area is in the door in the middle and the bathroom was on the other side. This truck and trailer delivered our backpacks and food. And wine. Did I mention we drank plenty of wine?
Another view of the sheep sorting pens just outside to the left of the building above.
Sometimes the sky was so deep blue it didn't look real.
Letting the horses graze for a little bit while we all found places to go to the bathroom behind rocks and bushes. Sometimes this meant a bit of a hike!
Usually we had to hold our horses while we ate our lunch brought in our saddle bags but on this day, we were met by our cook who also brought rope and stakes so we could "pen" the horses. I had to laugh at this because I know MY horse would have just stepped over this nearly invisible barrier!
Sometimes we'd be crossing an open plain area and the earth would just be split in half like this. They have frequent minor earth quakes here. It was also amazing how we could see it dark and raining in the distance but it could be very nice where we were riding.
Our two ladies from Texas. The one on the left has been on several other riding excursions around the world and was able to give us some good feedback!
This is in a famous place called "Valley of the Horses". It's a wide open meadow surrounded on all sides by these sheer rock formations. There are two very narrow trails in and out. We stopped here on our second day to eat lunch and let the horses graze.
The first of two rainbows we saw in Iceland.
Sometimes after the horses had a good drink, we would forego our water bottles for a sip of spring water ourselves! It was also a chance to pull off some of the outerwear as the day heated up.
There's a saying about Iceland being "all rainbows and waterfalls". I think there is some truth to that.
One of our Texas gals.
And one from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
And another Canadian from the Pacific side - our oldest rider of the bunch.
Hey - that's me in the back riding my favorite mare! Her name was Silver. Or at least that's how I pronounced the unpronounceable Icelandic name! I also got to ride her on our last day in the afternoon. They kept careful track of each horse we rode and then on the second to last night, asked us to name our favorite 3 and they tried to make sure we got to ride at least one of them on the last day. It was surprising to see how easily that worked out - we all really had different favorites out of the 20 horses!
It wasn't often we rode on roads but when we did, we never saw any cars. I'm not sure where they went...we never saw any houses either for the most part!
I think I posted a similar picture to this one but I'm in this pic - last horse. I often rode in the back of the pack. Partly because it was often a little two crowded up front but also to help some of the less experienced riders who seemed to gravitate to the back of the pack. The woman in front of me had only been on a horse about 3 times but by the end of the week was riding pretty well! Trial by fire.
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