Rafting Iceland


The New York

Times runs a piece
by one of my favorite writers, Mark Sundeen, about rafting in Iceland. Sundeen is the author of
The Making of Toro, which made my summer reading list
earlier this year and which is a damn funny piece of work.

In the article, Sundeen exercises his trademark snarky wit (though not too much…it’s a pretty straight up piece) to
talk about the thrills and chills of riding rivers in a place well enough known or its ice that, well, it was named for
it. Like Sundeen, I too, was unaware Iceland was a rafting destination. Any country that lies so close to the Arctic
Circle, where the ground is frozen solid more than half the year, seems an unlikely place for folks to put in a boat
for fun. But as Sundeen points out, the weather is warm enough during the mid summer months that the glaciers melt and
create some pretty ideal (albeit ball shrinkingly cold) rafting opportunities.