Laugavegur Gear List: 55 km Landmannalaugar to Þórsmörk

The Laugavegur crosses 55 km of the Icelandic interior from Landmannalaugar to Þórsmörk, usually in three to four days in July or August. This list assumes you camp at the hut sites (wild camping is prohibited along the route) and carry every meal, because there is no resupply between the trailheads. The huts themselves book out months ahead; the campsites next to them don't.

Weather drives everything here. The trail crosses exposed highland without a single tree, and a calm evening can turn into horizontal rain and storm gusts by morning; even in July, tents get shredded at Hrafntinnusker. So the shelter is a Tarptent Scarp 1 with its crossover poles: around 1.5 kg where a trekking pole shelter is half that, and the one item on this list I'd call non-negotiable. The same logic picked an Arc'teryx hardshell over a 180 g rain shell, and a hooded Cumulus mummy bag over a quilt, because drafts are what make a stormbound night miserable.

The rivers are the second condition. Several glacial channels have no bridges, Bláfjallakvísl south of Álftavatn and the braided Þröngá before Þórsmörk among them. Dedicated crossing sandals ride on the outside of the pack, and the trekking poles come along for the crossings rather than the tent.

Insulation is synthetic on purpose: a Micro Puff keeps working after two wades and a day of rain, when damp down would have quit.

The rest stays simple. No water filter (streams and hut taps are potable), a wind-resistant Soto stove because the campsites have no shelter to cook behind, and four days of food at 700 g a day.

Base weight: 7.5 kg (16.5 lb), the heaviest of the three Nordic lists on this site and the one to trim last. Copy it, scale the food days to your pace, and check safetravel.is before you commit to a start date.