Landmannalaugar to the Sea
Starting November 15, the price goes to $4,323 ($2,161.50 at admission with split pay). Your price is set when you complete registration and pay, so finish before November 15 to get early bird.
We run this trip twice in 2027, back to back. They are two separate trips. Same route, same price, same trip leaders. You pick the week that works and you travel with that group. You are not signing up for both.
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51.5
MILES
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10,358
FEET UP
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5
NIGHTS
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12
MAX GROUP
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The Laugavegur is the best known trail in Iceland. It runs from the rhyolite hills of Landmannalaugar down through the Highlands to the birch woods of Þórsmörk, and that is where it officially ends.
We keep going. One more day, over Fimmvörðuháls and down to the sea at Skógar. It is the hardest day of the week, and it is one of many reasons to come.
Six days. Five nights in mountain huts, a tent camp at Emstrur, and a private rooms at the finish. Your bags move ahead of you every day, so you walk with a daypack. Twelve people, two trip leaders, and one table in Skógar on the last night with dinner on us.
The map says 16.7 miles. Every watch in our group said closer to 20. Call it 18 to 19 miles and 3,118 feet and plan for that. It is the longest day of the week by a lot.
Some tours put this pass in the brochure, walk partway up it, and turn around. We cross it. It runs between Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull. Two glaciers, close enough that on a clear day you see both at once.
Halfway across you walk between Magni and Móði, two craters that did not exist before 2010. The ground there is still warm in places. They are named for Thor’s sons. Iceland does that kind of thing without blinking.
Then down. A staircase of waterfalls along the Skógá river, more than twenty of them, all the way to Skógafoss and the black sand. You finish at the ocean.
Huts, one tent night, and cozy two bed rooms at the end. Huts and tents each have something the other does not, and this route lets you get both.
Ask anyone who has done both and they will tell you the tent night is the best sleep of the week. No bunk room, no headlamps at 4am, no stranger snoring three feet away. Your own space, the wind on the fly, and a full night of sleep.
The trade is that a tent is colder in the morning and there is no kitchen to stand around in. So we do it once, at Emstrur, where it works.
Why not camp the whole way? Because campers are not allowed inside the huts in Iceland, and that rule is enforced even in a storm. On a route this exposed, with a group this size, we are not building a trip that depends on the weather cooperating.
Bring your own sleeping bag. Everything else is handled.
I founded HardWin Adventures out of Nashville and I own HardWin Vacations. Twenty years in event production, most of it putting people outdoors in places that ask something of them. Trail races, ultras, endurance events, community outings. I am also Director of RUNNTENN, a nonprofit running free and accessible running and walking events across Tennessee, because the point of all of this is to remove barriers rather than build them, and to put a community together on the other side.
Outside the events, I chase Fastest Known Times. I hold records on the Ozark Highlands Trail, the Sheltowee Trace, and the Natchez Trace.
The one people ask about is the Appalachian Trail. I went after the speed record and held record pace for 779 miles before a quad tear ended it. Twelve states short. That attempt taught me more than any of the finishes did. About what a body does on day eighteen, about making decisions when you are too tired to make them well, and about the difference between wanting something and being able to keep moving toward it. Most of what I know about how a hard week goes came from days like those.
What I believe in is giving people huge life experiences. Through goals in my races, through community with RUNNTENN, and now through HardWin Vacations, where the experience comes with people you will know for the rest of your life.
I am on the trail with you the entire week. Not coordinating from town, not meeting the group for dinner. Cooking in the hut, making the weather call on the pass, walking the whole thing alongside you.
I live in Nashville with my wife Stephanie, our son Zaidyn, our dogs, and a cat who appears to be reviewing my long term status.
Lauren is a former research scientist and teacher turned endurance coach and lifelong adventurer. She brings years of experience across ultrarunning, backpacking, adventure racing, mountaineering, and wilderness travel to her work.
Her mission is to create meaningful experiences that foster reflection, growth, and connection through time spent in the wild. She believes everyone, from the aspiring adventurer to the most seasoned endurance athlete, deserves the opportunity to explore, learn, challenge themselves, and build community in wild places.
When she is not coaching, Lauren can usually be found running ultras, carrying a pack, chasing big mountains, or planning her next adventure. You can also catch her on Discovery Channel’s Season 16 of Naked and Afraid.
She was on the first HardWin Iceland trip and is back for 2027. She knows this route, this weather, and what a group needs on day four when everyone is tired and the wind has picked up.
Precision Nutrition Certified Nutritionist
GGS Certified Women’s Health Specialist
Certified Metabolic Efficiency Specialist
Misfit Mountain Athletics
The extra day is the part nobody else offers. It is not the only reason this week works.
Every day, your duffel moves ahead of you by vehicle to the next hut. You hike with a daypack.
That changes the whole week. You move fast and light over 51 miles of Highland terrain, then walk into camp and everything you own is already sitting there. Dry clothes. Your good sleeping bag. Whatever you decided you could not do without. Most people on this trail are carrying forty pounds and rationing. You are not.
Breakfasts are light and early. Oatmeal, bars, fruit, and real coffee before we move. Enough to get you going without sitting in a hut for an hour.
Lunches are packed and eaten on the trail wherever the view is best.
Dinners are the good part. We cook together in the hut kitchens most nights, sit down at the restaurant at Álftavatn, take the hot buffet at Volcano Huts before the big day, and finish with a proper dinner in Skógar that is on us.
Tell us about allergies and dietary needs on your application and we plan around them.
The extra day is what nobody else offers. The package around it is what makes the week work.
Now we are looking for the right group to do it with.
Twelve people, five nights, shared kitchens and a lot of weather. Who ends up in the group shapes the week more than the route does.
What we are really after is people who can be cold and tired and still be good company. The rest we can work with.
Our biggest fear is that this type of trip simply isn’t for you. We aren’t looking for the strongest or the fastest. We screen for an endurance mindset. People who have struggled, kept moving, and found success on the other side. When the chips are down, can you accept the situation, keep moving forward, and help the person beside you who may be struggling?
We screen because your mindset affects not only your safety and happiness, but the safety, happiness and experience of the entire group. Know that this is nature. We don’t conquer it, but we do our best to survive it.
You’re two days into the trip when 70 mph winds pin us down on a mountain. The temperature is dropping, everything is wet, and the route ahead is no longer an option. You haven’t slept, you’re running out of dry clothes, and the trip you spent months preparing for is over. Now we have to turn around and fight our way back out. You’re cold, exhausted, pissed off and miserable, and the person next to you is having an even worse day.
Do you still want to come?
We host this adventure. The Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls are marked trails that thousands of people hike every summer on their own. There’s no climbing, no ropes and no glacier travel, so this trip doesn’t call for professional mountain guides. What makes it hard is distance, river crossings and weather, and that’s where we come in. We’ve hiked this route, we stay with you every mile, and we handle everything else: huts, meals, bags, transport and the daily weather call. You get to focus on the hike while we take care of the rest. Hosting instead of hiring a guide company keeps the group small and personal, and it keeps your cost down. We have an emergency plan for every day of the trip, covering exit routes, communication and weather calls, and we share it with everyone who signs up. Every traveler hikes at their own risk under our participant agreement, and travel insurance with evacuation coverage is required.
Fly in Friday. Sleep, eat something, walk around Reykjavík, and show up Saturday morning without your heart rate up. One extra night, and it takes the only unrecoverable mistake off the table.
We work for it. We are cooking, making the calls, watching the weather, and on the trail every mile of the week. It is never required though. If you do not feel we earned it, that is fine, and nobody will ask.
What we need is for you to tell us where you stand. Put it on the application and we will look at it together and give you a straight answer about whether this is your year.
People skip this section and then get surprised by it, so here it is spelled out. None of it is unusual for adventure travel abroad. Read it anyway.
We are not holding your deposit. We have committed it on your behalf.
This is why we require travel insurance with emergency medical and evacuation coverage. Insurance is what protects your money against the things nobody plans for. Illness, injury, a family emergency, a job that changes. We are a small operator and we cannot be your insurance. If that sounds harsh, it is only because it is true.
We chose 90 days on purpose. We are opening this early so that if a week does not fill, you find out with three months to spare, before you have booked flights on a maybe and while airfare somewhere else is still reasonable.
If we cancel for any other reason within our control, you get a full refund. If something outside anyone’s control forces a cancellation, we refund whatever has not already been spent on your behalf.
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If anything in your application gives either of us reason to talk, we’ll talk before you book.
Contact: John.Hardin@hardwinadventures.com · This trip on UltraSignup