On another note....thanks for the link to the actual pics Those Landys are sick. I know the conditions there call for the big tires, but Im assuming OEX doesnt have a vehicle outfitted that way so did they rent or borrow one or what? Same for everyone?
From what Bruce told us, OEX has an arrangement with several local Defender 110 owners that allow him to rent trucks. We had four trucks on the trip, one was owned by a local guide, the rest were rented from different folks in Iceland that either run guide trips personally or are in SAR. Bruce's reputation and experience in the area, I think this is his eigth or ninth year running trips to Iceland, allow him to run the only self guided tour type trips by Americans in Iceland.
The local guide (in the teal colored defender) accompanied us throughout the trip. He is a friend of Bruce's and was able to provide a locals view of the land, culture, etc. He is for hire on his own to guide people, but it is far more expensive to use him directly and you don't get to drive. That is the big difference in OEX's trips, that the clients get to drive. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun had we all been passengers for the week.
The D110's varied in year, I think the guide's was an early 2000's and the 110 with the lights on the roof was a 2003. Those both were TD5 powered on 44" and 38" tires respectively. The other two were 07's and were Ford Courier powered. I never did push to drive the newer 110's, but heard they offered a great increase in low end torque over the TD5. All were fully equiped with ARB's front and rear, chart plotter style GPS, etc. We were at times driving on 10' of snow (that is when not actually on the glacier) and trucks would only sink 10" or so. There were some challenging times, we were in a whiteout on a glacier for a few hours, using only our GPSs to navigate our way down from the mountain. That was an experience in itself. In the lead truck we couldn't see anything and at times had to drive with the door open just to make sure we were still moving. The snow can be unforgiving and change textures quickly which proved very challenging.
Cool trucks were everywhere over there. Overlanding, or I guess overglaciering seems to be a national passtime in Iceland. We saw everything from LR 110s to 130s, every series of LC including the coolest 70 on 38"s to Ford Excursions and Econoline vans on 44's. The gent that I was paired with on the trip took something like 2000 photos (not kidding here) and I am hoping he makes them availible soon. I need a cool picture of me for my avitar! I hope this answers some questions about the trip.
