The White Silence

A story about white-outs, wilderness, and the moment you find out who you really are.

“You do not stop. Not for storms. Not for fear. Not for anything.” - Simon Clark

Iceland Wasn’t a Holiday

Iceland wasn’t a holiday. It was a question.

And it wasn’t a gentle one.
Not the kind you answer over coffee or during a quiet weekend away.
It was the kind of question the world asks when it wants to know what you’re really made of.

Just a few months before, I had dragged myself up Snowdon.
That climb left me so broken I couldn’t walk for three days afterwards.
Most people would have taken that as a warning.
I didn’t.

Because there are places on this earth that don’t let you hide. Places where, once you start, you either keep going or you vanish. The Laugavegur trail is one of those places.

Fifty-five kilometres of wilderness through a land that looks like the bones of the planet.
Steam hissing from the ground.
Black volcanic deserts that look endless.
Glaciers crouching in the distance like sleeping gods.

I started out alone, carrying everything I needed on my back. Four days across a place that does not forgive weakness. And on the very first evening, Iceland decided to find out who I really was.

Into the White-Out

The storm came from nowhere. One moment there was a path ahead of me; the next, the world was gone.

Snow swallowed the trail in seconds.
The wind howled so hard it tore the breath from my lungs.

And suddenly it was just me — standing in a total white-out, where the world shrank to the size of my own boots. The cold sank into me, slow and merciless, like it had all the time in the world.

In that moment, one thought whispered in my head:
Sit down. Stop. It would be easier.

And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.

But there were no rescue helicopters coming.
There was no easy way out.
If I stopped, I would die right there on the first day of the trail.

So I stared at the faint line of half-buried footprints in the snow. I made a decision: as long as I could stand, I would move. Even if it was slow. Even if it was only one step.

One Step, Then Another

I leaned into that wind and followed those prints.

One step.
Then another.
Over and over until the storm finally began to ease and shapes appeared out of the white — rocks, the outline of the trail, the promise of something other than ending.

By the time I reached my first camp, I was frozen, shaking, and empty.
But I had survived.

The next three days threw everything else at me: rivers so cold they stole my breath, black deserts, sulphur-soaked valleys, ridges where the wind knocked me sideways.
And I kept moving.

When I walked out of those mountains at the end of the Laugavegur trail, I knew this: If I could survive that first day, I could survive anything.

Days later, a volcano erupted and eventually cut off a third of the island.
But I had already learned the only truth that matters in a place like Iceland:

You do not stop.
Not for storms.
Not for fear.
Not for anything.

What the White-Out Really Teaches

There’s a moment on every journey where comfort ends and truth begins.
The white-out was mine.

It showed me that strength isn’t loud.
It isn’t dramatic.
It isn’t a cinematic montage of grit and glory.

Strength is quieter.
It’s the moment you whisper “not yet” when everything in you screams “stop.”
It’s the decision not to sit down.
Not today.

Iceland wasn’t testing my endurance.
It was testing my decision-making.
Would I take one more step?
Would I keep going when no one was watching?

That’s all survival is, in the end — choosing motion over surrender.

The One-Minute Decision Exercise
A very different kind of exercise.

Set a timer for 60 seconds.
Stand up.
Look around your room.

Choose one thing — just one — that you’ve been putting off.

It could be tiny:

• a dish

• a message

• a book on the floor

• a tab you need to close

• a small task you keep stepping around

When the timer starts, you don’t think.
You don’t prepare.
You don’t hesitate.

You move.
Immediately.

Because the muscle you’re training isn’t discipline — it’s the willingness to start before comfort arrives.

That’s what the white-out taught me.
That’s what Iceland demanded.