Skateboarding
Skateboarding
Come skate the endless light of Iceland!
Watch Dan Plunkett, Tyler Bledsoe, Josh Matthews, Kevin Terpening and Madars Apse hit up Reykjavik before rolling out on the 1,300km ring road.
4 min
Come skate the endless light of Iceland – chapter 1
Watch Dan Plunkett, Tyler Bledsoe, Josh Matthews, Kevin Terpening and Madars Apse hit up Reykjavik before rolling out on the 1,300km ring road.
It’s pretty fair to assume that Iceland is on most peoples’ bucket list.
I mean, you’ve got Þingvellir, Jökulsárlón, Hallgrímskirkja, Skógafoss, Mývatn – and for those of you who don’t speak Icelandic, the classic Blue Lagoon. It’s a pretty magical land of waterfalls, black sand beaches, incredible museums and hot springs as far as the eye can see.
Not on that list? Skateboarding.
Which is why this trip was about 10 years in the making. Iceland has an impressive list of things to do and sights to see, but skateboarding doesn’t really feature anywhere on that list.
I’d always dreamed of doing a trip to Iceland, and in 2009 I spent about a week around Reykjavik on something of a scouting mission to see what there was to skate.
Turns out there was some cool stuff.
Tyler Bledsoe - Kickflip In
© Sam McGuire
Skógafoss waterfall
© Sam McGuire
Madars Apse - Back Tail
© Sam McGuire
Downtown Reykjavik
© Sam McGuire
So each June, I would pitch the trip to people.
On June 21 each year, Reykjavik gets 21 hours of sunlight and then even when the sun ‘sets’, it hardly gets dark enough for the streetlights to come on.
Basically, in June you can skateboard in Iceland 24 hours a day.
Madars Apse - Nosebonk
© Sam McGuire
Kevin Terpening takes the plunge
© Sam McGuire
Dan Plunkett - Gap to Frontside 50-50
© Sam McGuire
Skógafoss from elevation
© Sam McGuire
Years went by, plans came and went until for whatever reason the stars finally aligned and a few days before the summer solstice Dan Plunkett, Tyler Bledsoe, Josh Matthews, Kevin Terpening and Madars Apse headed into the unknown.
Starting in Reykjavik the crew skated the capital before heading out to circle the island on Iceland’s famous Route 1, the Ring Road.
We quickly learned a few things.
One, Iceland is dramatic. Iceland doesn’t do subtleties – if it’s sunny, it’s the most beautiful day you have ever seen. If it’s raining, it’s raining harder than you’ve ever seen and the two can change places in a heartbeat.
Two, it being light all the time was both beautiful and disorienting. The city never sleeps because it doesn’t get dark and people are out doing things at odd times of the day.
Some days we would skate during the day, eat, nap and then go back out again for a sunset session at 11pm.
Reykjavik is a gorgeous city, right on the water, but you could see the mountains in the distance and the crew were anxious to get on the road and see the sights we’d all heard about. So we said or goodbyes to the city life and headed out into the great wide open of Highway 1 to see what the rest of Iceland had to offer.
