paul.mayIceland
this, really fuckin cool country. i was staying around reykjavik(the capitol) in june for week on the way to scotland. i instantly regretted not brining skis, but it was a family trip so oh well.
the place looks like fuckin mars. at least where i was it was all vast flat lava fields with mountains randomly popping out of it. thats just the southwest peninsula though. there was a ski hill about 30 min away from reykjavik, but it wasn't anything crazy.
from what i have heard, the goods are found in northern iceland. there are about 5 resorts with in reasonable distance of each other in the north. i'm not quite sure of the terrain they offer, or if they would still be open in may though. i would imagine the heli operations would still run in may at least.
if you tour, you'd be set. it was still snowing in june on the south when i was there, so i would imagine may in the north would still be brining pow. i would say the mountains are comparable in vertical drop to what you would find in UT, and CO. they may not be the biggest mountains, but a lot of what i saw looked like it would be a ton of fun to ride.
even if the weather didn't work out, it would still be a really cool trip for the experience. in may i would guess you would have about 21 hours of sunlight. it was 24 hours when i was there. ski as long as you want...
rekyavik is a really cool city too. some really interesting food, super fresh sea food, a growing modernist cuisine movement, and a bunch of traditional food that may scare you. yes i had fermented shark when i was there, it honestly wasn't all that bad. minke whale sashimi is amazing delicious. like a cross between tuna and beef. sounds insane to say, but id almost put it up there with bluefin in terms of flavour.
the party scene is also pretty crazy, seeing as its dark half the year and they've got nothing else to do. all of the girls are 10s, except for the 60+ year olds who are 9s. like its kind of ridiculous, there just aren't any ugly people there.
the other, much more demanding option would be to check out greenland. if youve seen further by jeremy jones than you have an idea of what the skiings like there. definitely bigger mountains than what you'll find in iceland. but its incredibly remote, you need to go in being ready for a full on expedition, or pay a lot of money for guide. so probably not the most feasible option but it would be really cool.
iceland on the other hand would be fairly reasonable. flights to reykyavik are quite cheap. once you're there though, everything is quite pricy. you'd obviously need to do some research, but if you can swing it, i'd really recommend checking it out.
