Getting half way up the mountain we realized the trail wasn’t really much of a trail at all, and considering there were goat paths everywhere, we ended up getting lost multiple times. After practically walking around the entire mountain on very small ledges, we came to multiple dead ends before turning around ready to give up and admit defeat.
Coming around to our original starting place I decided to make one last effort and high tailed it straight up the mountain about 150 yards just to see if there was any chance a path could be found above us.
And there it was, a small path heading up and over what was at least class 3 to 4 scrambling. As we approached the summit, the locals had placed a series of three ropes to aid climbers up the steepest parts of the route, all of which were pretty sketchy. After coming over the edge we realized their means of anchoring the ropes were even sketchier. But what kind of adventure is it unless there is a little bit—err, a lot—of risk involved.
All in all, Iceland would have been amazing even if all we ever saw were the typical tourist spots, but in the end we had an even better story to tell.