Vatnajökull: Unfathomably Large Things and Finding Peace in Smallness

My breath fogged against the car window as I squished my face as close as I could to the cold glass. This was a habit my dad usually discouraged, but in the driver's seat, his eyes were also glued to the scenery. Snowy mountains lined the winding road taking us through rural southern Iceland. We were three days into our family vacation to Iceland and on our way to our next adventure. With a packed itinerary, meticulously planned by my grandparents, my family was constantly in motion, traveling to three to four destinations a day. Sometimes I had no idea where we were going—I was just along for the ride. 

As the road curved around a mountain, the sun finally pierced the thick clouds. It warmed my face for the first time in what felt like forever. Though we hadn’t been in Iceland long, the frequent cloud cover was a big contrast from the Texas summer we had left behind, and I was missing the sun. Around the bend, an even bigger mountain came into view, lit up with sunlight. It looked different from its neighbors—while they were tall and gray, this one was sprawling and shining white. I pointed it out to my dad, and he explained to me that it wasn’t a mountain at all, but a glacier. I was staring at Vatnajökull, the Glacier of Lakes, the largest icecap in Iceland. This glacier covers 8% of the entire country, over 3,000 square miles. 

I found myself unable to look away, lulled into a trance by the striking view and movement of the car. The harder I stared, the harder it became to understand what I was seeing. 

The glacier was so much bigger than me. It loomed behind the mountains, but I was looking at a stunningly insignificant portion of its total size. I imagined wandering for miles and miles over nothing but ice. I tried to look at it in different ways to see the distance it covered, but it was impossible. None of the pictures I took seemed to do it justice. I don’t know if my eyes could even do it justice. It’s always a weird feeling, looking at something my mind cannot fathom. Some things are too large for the human brain to understand. How are you supposed to feel when you’re faced with one? 

It was turning my mind in knots, and I was relieved to feel the car slow to a stop. 

We arrived at a beach unlike any I’d seen before with shiny black pebbles instead of sand and navy waves lapping against the shore. Icebergs floated in the water, gently bobbing up and down. My brothers and I stepped out of the car, joining our cousins and grandparents. Conversation began around me, and I tried to listen at first, but my family’s voices started to blend together, and I couldn’t help but shift my focus toward Vatnajökull. I broke off from the group, watching it as I walked quietly along the shoreline. 

The coast was beautiful. Small chunks of ice washed up onto the beach and sunlight reflected off of cerulean icebergs. Occasionally, seals poked their heads out of the water before disappearing beneath dark waves. Vatnajökull filled out the entire background of the picturesque view. The sprawling hills of ice looked like rolling sand dunes, like I was standing at the edge of the Sahara. I was in awe at the sheer scale of it. The bobbing icebergs were nothing but glacier crumbs, and even they looked big to me. The size of the icecap was finally getting less terrifying as I admired it longer. It made me feel like an insignificant insect. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. 

Eventually, the wind and cold and hunger got to be too much for my family, and we piled back into our two shared rental cars. I settled back into my seat, watching the landscape change as we drove away, Vatnajökull still lurking behind the mountains. I let my gaze drop from the glacier after a couple of minutes, and was surprised to see white flowers lining the windy road. They grew in big bunches and were pretty, with fluffy-looking petals. Though they looked dainty, I knew they had to be resilient to survive the harsh cold and wind that had become too much for us to bear.

There was a 3,000 square mile glacier outside my window, and I was looking at flowers. 

Compared to Vatnajökull, they were insignificant. So small, they may as well have been nonexistent. The road began to curve around a mountain, and the glacier faded out of view, blocked by a mountain a fraction of its size. 

I shifted my eyes downward, contentedly admiring fields of white petals, and decided I was glad of my small size—I would hate to have missed the flowers.