With its ethereal yet inhospitable landscapes and brutally unpredictable weather, Iceland is a country that can threaten even the boldest outdoorsmen. Men’s Health bedded in with Ice-Sar – the volunteer rescue force whose members risk their lives to save those in peril.
In Iceland, as the locals are quick to inform you, it’s not the cold or the rain that will get you – it’s the wind. In October 2017, a pair of hunters were enjoying a day outdoors in the east of the country. The weather at that time of year, while not exactly what you’d call warm, can still be clement, and the terrain has an almost extraterrestrial feel, with hot springs, volcanic rock and rough edges that spread out into the north Atlantic like a drop of ink.
Having shot 16 birds and buoyed by their haul, the hunters – a pair of well-equipped, highly experienced men – decided to press on a little further. Then the sky darkened. The
weather is known to change both quickly and often. Suddenly, the two men were being battered by rain and winds that whipped their skin at a speed of 40m per second. They tried to call for help but their mobile phone signal failed, and even if they had been successful in their attempts to raise the alarm, they couldn’t have given an accurate location. These two men, who had done everything right, now found themselves fearing for their lives, disoriented and exposed, and at the mercy of an Icelandic storm.
“The terrain here is not necessarily the hardest in the world,” says Örn Smárason, a project manager for Iceland’s sprawling network of search and rescue teams known as Slysavarnarfélagið Landsbjörg, or the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (Ice-Sar) in English. “It’s the wind that really causes problems.”
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