Hunting for the Northern Lights

One of the main reason people visit Iceland during the winter is in the hopes that they will see the Northern Lights. While the lights are always in the sky, they are not always visible (The lights result from solar wind causing collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere). It is not as easy as driving out to a dark area, looking up, and seeing the Aurora Borealis. They say that you do not go on a Northern Lights tour, but on an Aurora hunt. It does take some patience and traveling to find them and some times even searching for hours, you may not see them even then.
The big enemies of the Northern Lights are cloud cover, city lights, and sunlight or in our case, the bright light from a full moon. Cold, clear nights are the best for seeing the lights because then there is less cloud cover, but it also makes it very cold tonstand.around and look for the lights.
We set out on Christmas night looking for the lights with a large group for a Lights hunt. Our convoy of 12 superjeeps, mini buses, and super vans made me think we were in an episode of Storm Chasers.  You can look at cloud maps, drive to a prime location, and still be thwarted by a passing storm (rain or snow), the full moon peeking out, or somehow you just miss them. We spent several hours chasing the lights that night and only saw a brief glimpse of them off in the distance. By the time we caravanned to the area we thought we had seen them, poof! they had disappeared. Most of the Northern Lights tours do say that if you do not see the lights that night, you can go again as many times as needed until you see them or leave Iceland. However, this is why the tour groups can grow so large. If you miss them one night, you join the next night's group. If that night gets canceled, more join the party the following evening. The tour did, however make a fun ending to the evening, at our last stop where we had hot cocoa and, for the adults, some vodka. Not the Northern Lights, but...it was midnight and I was ready to head back to the hotel.



Even if you do not see the Northern Lights, the tours are a wonderful opportunity to see parts of Iceland looking a bit other worldly with the geothermal features and moonlight on the snow.

We set out on the 26th on another tour, but in this instance it was just our one mini bus. After going on a larger Lights hunt and one with just the van and a group of 14 people, I would recommend going with the smaller group. I thought we had much more maneuverability and it is easier for one van to find a place to pull off than a large caravan.  But I should mention, luck plays a big part of finding the lights. On the 26th, we had been out searching for more than an hour and our guide, Heymir, read something in the sky that made him feel the lights were going to show themselves. To me, it just looked like a white contrail from a plane, but soon, it began taking on a greenish hue and suddenly, the sky came alive. Our light show lasted less than an hour and then the clouds came and blocked the view and Heymir announced "Okay, show's over!" and he was right. 

The Northern Lights are described as looking like curtains blowing in the wind or waves, but I don't think there are words to describe it. They are something that need to be experienced to really appreciate. I know my photos do not do them justice but hope they give you some idea of how amazing these "light shows" can be.