Daði Rúnar will recount his experience from November 2016, when he and his uncle got lost in the mountains near Slitvindastaðir on the Snæfellsnes peninsula while bird hunting in an area they knew well.
The weather started off fine, but began to deteriorate around noon on that fateful day. Shortly afterward, the uncle and his nephew decided to begin a careful descent down the mountain. They had gone hunting in the same area the previous year, and the day before it had taken them just over an hour to descend from the same hunting area.
Before they knew it, they had gotten lost in heavy fog shortly before sundown. The mountain is steep, and so it is not possible to make a descent from just anywhere. They tried to call for help, but their phones were dead due to the cold, and when they managed to switch one of their phones on again there was no cellular service.
They were tired after a day’s activities, but carried on walking until after darkness had fallen. They had to use their headlamps to find a place to settle down for the night, under a boulder at an elevation of around 600 meters. The temperature was estimated to be around 0–5°C during the night, with significant wind chill and heavy rain.
The thought processes of people in such situations, the lessons to be learned, and life after rescue, are all topics Daði Rúnar will touch on during this lecture.