Grandma’s Hali Hiking Trail
The trail was created in 2003 when preparations began for a rock shelter and a road was made westward in the mud. Every summer she walks here like a commander with her walking sticks, which are very necessary as her eyesight has deteriorated, but they are also useful for striking at the grouse, which can be aggressive on the trail.
There is a beautiful view when you walk up the forestry fence. The farms on the Breiðarbólstaðartorfan are called Gerði, Hali and Breiðarbólsstaður.
Grandma Hala holds the Icelandic record on this hiking trail, but since she was eighty and to this day she has walked over 10 thousand km, which is equivalent to walking 8 circles around Iceland based on the ring road, which is 1332 km.
Ingibjörg’s descendants wanted to honor her by marking her hiking trail in a special way. She is a great role model for many, always positive, and has made a difference in the community in various areas since she moved to Hali.
About Grandma Hala
Hali’s grandmother is named Ingibjörg Zophoníasdóttir.
She was born on August 22, 1923 in Hóli in Svarfaðardalur. Until 1937, the family lived in Hóli in a farmstead, but following the great earthquake of 1934, work began on building a stone house in Hóli. In the spring of 1945, Ingibjörg moved to East Skaftafellsýsla with Torfi Steinþórsson, a farmer’s son and teacher from Hali in Suðursveit. Ingibjörg met Torfi when he came as a teacher north to Svarfaðardalur in 1942, where he taught for three winters.
Ingibjörg is one of those women who always seems to be one step ahead of the rest of us. She always has something with her coffee, bakes her own bread, has crocheted blankets for all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and still does despite her poor eyesight. She sewed all the clothes for the family for a long time, knitted fleece sweaters in between doing the laundry, prepared the trout that Torfi caught, cooked food for the extended family and kept the house clean.
Ingibjörg not only did the traditional kitchen work, but she also did outdoor work on an equal footing with her male counterparts, took care of the maintenance and renovation of the house, as well as looking after utensils and tools.
Grandma Hali has always been good at spending time with her grandchildren.
Since the fall of 2001, she has stayed in Höfn during the winter, but in the spring, like the migratory birds, she comes to Hali and spends the summer in her house there.
Grandma á Hala has always been concerned about her health. One of the things she has put a lot of emphasis on since she got older is to exercise regularly. She goes for a walk almost every day and the path she walks here on the turf has become established as, “Grandma’s Walking Path”.
In 1985, at the initiative of Ingibjörg, a shelterbelt was planted above the Breiðabólstaðir farms. Today, there is beautiful forestry there that provides a lot of shelter, but it can often get quite windy under Steinafjall.
In the forestry fence there is a monument in memory of the brothers from Hali, Benedikt, Steinþór and Þórberg, and northwest of the monument is Ingibjörgarlundur.
