In the picture you can see the rescue vehicle in the fourground and the couples vehicle in the back ground. Photo: Páll Rúnar Traustason.
A routine surveilance to the mountain shelter Laugafell in Northeast Iceland led to the unexpected rescue of a Canadian couple who had been stuck there for 6 days.
Two men from Akureyri Travel Association, Páll Rúnar Traustason and Einar Hjartarson, went to the shelter to prepare it for the winter. The roads had been blocked since the storm last week but they were driving a custom built super jeep. When they came to the shelter they noticed a small SUV parked outside. When they got inside they found a Canadian couple who had sought shelter for 6 days in the shelter.
They did everything right
The shelter is warm and had some emergency supplies. They also had some food in the car and had divided all the food they could find into 30 equal portions so it should last them a whole month. They had written a large S.O.S. in the snow, put a cloth on top of the car so it could be spotted easier and put reflects up on the flag pole. They had no working phone so they could not call anyone.
Many people would have tried to walk to town which probably have been leathal. The cabin is a much safer place and much easier to find. The couple took to Reykjavik and then flew back to Canada, but they had missed their flight during their stay in the cabin.
Hjörtur
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