Fords
A fords of glacial streams and rivers is always associated with a risk, no matter whether you travel by foot or by car, a risk is always there.
As hikers should not be higher than water level in a ford up to the thigh, unless you have a calm or stagnant waters ahead. And people should not have the backpack straps laced too tightly. You should rest so loose that in a moment of danger of slipping in the water, can also instantaneously trigger the belt. If it is even so far that the backpack pushes one under water, and you just go fast enough out of the taping, you can come in a very dangerous situation. At higher flow also address the water run somewhat obliquely to the flow. Never have the flow in the back.
Often I could see hikers in crossing a ford, threw their shoes with a swing over the water and then barefoot, followed. Imitate this "throwing technology", not after, even if it still looks so imposing and skillfully. Once you throw the shoe is too short once wet, in the grave case it can be swept along by the glacier river and it can only delighting yet. The risk of any loss of its footwear is just too great, even if their throwing technique so skillfully developed and refined!
As a motorist you should know that not only the depth is important, but rather must include the soil water in the ford to be considered. A sandy or gravelly ground can be quite insidious. Without four-wheel vehicle as almost nothing to do. Quite bad it is cooked when goo (mud and sludge) is on the ground, as even four-wheel vehicles are in great distress. Also, it is always important to consider also the opposite side there also another exit option available?
One should avoid ato drive in woth hogh speed by the vehicle in the water if at all possible, because exactly this cain of drive in is wrong! During the way through through the water do not switch, in the continual low way go forward.
One is well-advised if one takes from the start a waders to himself, and then a celebration can carry out therefore on site and place. Then so equipped one can see very quick which water depth and which subsoil one has before himself. Already from exterior looking of the river one can recognise already a lot. How the Icelanders say always so nicely: "One must read the river."
However, follower is meant with it, a murky, sometimes milky water concludes by a glacier drain which leads then also a lot of mud, stone and sand with itself, while a clear water is due mostly from a source river or tributary and leaves to a great extent the subsoil tolerable. The water level is a little mostly lower in a ford in the early morning than at the midday or evening. This hangs up together with the fact that with rising day temperatures the glacier delivers more melt water.
If you undertake an Iceland journey and you the intention also have to cross fords by the car, make sure before exactly where and by which height the bleed air tap is with your vehicle, because exactly here is the biggest danger point. The exhaust is not the problem. As long as the engine runs, an overpressure is there always and raises no problems. If water about the bleed air tap penetrates, however, once, was over then for your engine and he lives from now on in the empire of the nirvana.
If in doubt, if you are uncertain to face the ford, go to my dear, the loss of his vehicle weighs much higher. Because you risk nothing!
