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Iceland, an icy island in North Atlantic, right on the edge of the

Arctic.

Here, volcanoes hide on the glaciers, and continental plates meet beneath

crystal lakes. It's pretty windy right now.

Here, the winds have flown hard for thousands of years.

shaping a land of ice and fire.

Definitely risky and dangerous.

In Iceland, every step is an adventure, and only the brave take it on. Just get

out of the way! The situation just got bad. It can very rapidly get worse.

Pretty miserable out here.

Here in Iceland, everything can change in a moment.

Three days ago, Mike Wilson was in sunny Bermuda, jumping off cliffs,

biking down streets, training for a trip.

A trip that would take him across the Atlantic and into an unfamiliar land of

adventure.

Mike is an extreme athlete, something he has been since 11.

When he became the youngest professional skier in the world.

I basically grew up just playing sports and every sport I could.

A lot of my sponsors covered, you know, other sports rather than just skiing.

When I was interested in learning how to do them, it was a pretty quick

transition.

So I found all of them that I was surrounded by.

You know, the best motocross riders, the best, you know, base jumpers and

skydivers. So I'm super fortunate and super lucky to have that kind of

background that so few other kids have.

Normally, Mike's adventures are planned around a single specific course.

Lift diving, kite skiing, base jumping.

But this trip is different.

Mike has found a country where he thinks he can combine multiple extreme sports

while challenging himself to take on unforgiving and punishing landscapes.

His destination?

Iceland.

Probably the only place on Earth where glaciers and volcanoes sit practically

side by side.

Extreme weather here.

It's part of everyday life.

Mike Wilson plans to hike, bike, dive,

rest, fly, and base jump through

Iceland.

But first, the tools. What this trip needs besides an adrenaline junkie is

gear that can take wind, volcano, ice, and whatever else.

an island on the edge of the Arctic, make row at it.

Ice wind is really difficult to plan for and really simple at the same time.

Due to its location and its weather, you're basically within a 10 degrees

Fahrenheit range, which makes it a little bit easier.

The downside is that you never really can rely on the weather.

He is packing kites, harnesses, tents.

Shoes, snow bikes, and anything else that can travel and survive Iceland.

The customs issues in Bermuda means he had to get it all shipped to the United

States, to his friend Jerry's place in Boston.

For Mike, Bermuda had been a holiday destination, perfect for cliff diving,

an expedition that turned into a new way of life.

I came down to Bermuda for the first time five years ago on what was supposed

to be a five-day cliff-diving film shoot.

I came with the intention of staying for a month, have a little bit more downtime

here. And about two weeks into it, I met my girlfriend.

So I came down here on a film shoot, fell in love with the island, fell in

love with a girl, and I've been here ever since.

Cheers.

We're just on the dock near my house, getting ready to head out to the

airport. Finally, go time.

Bye.

Love you. Love you, too.

Have fun.

Try to be safe.

Always.

Cool. Love you. Me, too.

First stop, Boston, to collect his gear, which has already arrived.

And it's waiting for him at Jerry's.

I flew into Boston over to my friend Jerry's house.

My buddy Jerry. Jerry and I have been buddies for between five and ten years.

We've known each other for quite a while.

He's just a fun character, a super loyal friend, super helpful.

What else you got?

Ski monitor done, REI done.

And he was like, whatever you need, just let me know.

So I was like, cool, I'm going to send basically half of a living room full of

boxes to your house to figure out where to put them. And he was fine with it.

Lots of lines, lots of fabric, more lines, and still no harness.

When you're kite skiing,

It's basically a three-part system.

You have a wing itself, the kite that you're flying, that moves around.

Then you have a bar, which is the bar and lines that attach to the kite, and

that's how you steer it and create power.

And then basically you have the third part is the harness that you wear that

actually attaches the kite to you, and it pulls you along.

So the harness is a must-have.

Yeah, so I have four kites, four bars, and zero harnesses.

which basically means I have everything I need to not go anywhere. Let me shoot

him an email and see if he can overnight the harness.

What are the odds that any travel could be trouble-free?

Zero to none.

I've got all these errands to run, things I have to pick up and shop for in

person that I need to try on before I can leave.

But at the same time, I have to be at the house every time UPS, FedEx, USPS or

DHL want to drop off a package.

I just got noticed saying that I wasn't there.

For real?

A delivery has been missed.

Alright.

Just 10 more hours until the flight to Iceland.

10 more hours to track the missing piece.

While he waits... Mike needs to also pick up the most vital gear of the trip,

his main transport in Iceland, the fat bike.

A bicycle that travels on, well, everything.

You have so many different types of terrain between snow and hard rock, soft

rock, sand, that a full suspension fat bike is really super, super cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Sand, spot.

Must, no, throw any kind of terrain at it, and this bike will deal with it like

a pro.

At least Mike hoped so.

So we're going to be biking all over the country, some during the day, but quite

a bit at night.

What can you recommend for lighting? Check this out. About 1,300 lumens on

it. So you can basically light up a pitch black area. Daylight. Pretty

close.

Basically looking for something that will allow me to utilize my fingers.

you know, more than a mitten, but something that'll be warmer than a

glove. So these lobster mitts are perfect.

All right.

Nice meeting you. Thanks so much. Good luck out there. Have fun.

Yeah. See you again, I hope. All right, cool.

Take care.

Back at Jerry, the mitt package has been delivered.

Hello, ma'am. What's happening? Is this Mike Wilson?

Yes, sir.

Fingers crossed it's the correct package, or else the trip could collapse

before it even begins.

Perfect, this is the box that I've been waiting for.

That's where we're heading, right there.

Fun fact, not all of iTunes is ice.

Some of it is fire, like in volcanoes.

It's truly a country of fire and ice.

This could get interesting.

Mike's adventure has well and truly begun.

An island country in the North Atlantic, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

The first settlers on the island were the Vikings, over a thousand years ago.

In terms of geology, though, Iceland is a lot younger.

The reason why? The wind, water, earth and fire are still working on it.

Throwing up lava, melting down glaciers and pushing up Iceland every year just a

little more from the sea.

Mike has landed in Reykjavik.

The northernmost capital on the planet.

The name means Smoky Bay.

Explanation? The earth here is geothermal.

What is cool, though, is that Icelanders use all this geothermal energy to make

power and run entire cities, making it also the greenest capital in the world.

After exploring Reykjavik, Mike gets a move on, first for some local advice.

First thing I'm doing is running over to the Nordic guest house. Glenn was really

helpful, giving me different websites and apps to show weather and conditions.

websites and information that you can look up. Always look up the day ahead,

basically. The skies look pretty clear for the next two days.

Okay, perfect.

Glenn also has some travel advice.

Dress for the temperature with averages around seven degrees Celsius.

For there's a catch.

One, the temperature may change without notice.

Watch out for weather, volcano and storm warnings.

Always.

And three, right on the right side of the road.

Weather can change within an hour. It's very fast, basically.

It's what makes Iceland such a dangerous place to be.

So right now, we are in the green.

And this green, basically, is in between two and six.

And the numbers represent metres.

So right now the wind is blowing this way at 6 meters per second.

Okay, and then there's a few spots that were 8 and a few spots that were 10

meters. Yeah, so they can go quite high.

Wind speeds can go from 5 to 50 meters per second depending on where you are.

At its worst, it is strong enough to blow over cars and heavy vehicles.

Humans clearly don't stand much chance.

Clearly a land that could be brutal and unforgiving.

Perfect for what Mike has in mind.

Definitely awesome to be in Iceland, you know. After a couple of months of

planning and getting gear organized and we're finally here and all of a sudden,

you know, it's becoming real and I'm off on the adventure.

The plan is to start off from Reykjavik.

Ride to the Reykjanes Peninsula.

Move on to Blaufjall, Þingvellin National Park, the Central Highlands,

and through the Vatnajökull Ice Cap to the Eastfjords.

Then, hike through Northern Iceland, the Westfjords, and right back

to Reykjavík.

That's a bit of everything.

Mountains to climb, glaciers to trek, rivers to raft.

slopes to ski, and the whole of Iceland to bike through.

The adventure of a lifetime.

To kick off the first leg of his journey, Mike is hoping to reach Lofjord

in the southwest of Iceland, and that means he needs to ride.

All day today I've been biking around the peninsula near Reykjavik, and this

is all volcanic rock and volcanic sand, so...

It's super bumpy, super slippery. It's a pain in the butt. I'm super glad I have

a fat bike.

You know, having full suspension has saved me multiple times.

It's tough to navigate.

It's exhausting. You know, I thought I was going to be able to ride at 15 to 20

miles an hour as an average, and I'm probably riding at like 6 or 8.

It's a bit more challenging than I thought it would be, but I'm making

progress.

The Reykjanes Peninsula is geothermal and a UNESCO Global Geopark.

But mostly, it's more moonskates on Earth, going from lava rocks to volcanic

sand to mud, without much warning.

After a few hours of riding, I found this really, really beautiful spot that

I'm going to camp at tonight.

It's on top of a big cliff overlooking the ocean.

And I'm hoping that it's going to be a really, really beautiful place to wake

up.

Soon the day is done and it's night one in Iceland.

It's pretty crazy to think that, you know, yesterday morning I was in Boston

and... You know, I woke up this morning on a 100-foot cliff here in Iceland

overlooking the North Atlantic. It's pretty amazing.

After sitting on the bike for a few days, my legs and butt need a break.

So I'm going to see if I can find a higher elevation covered with snow and

try to go launch a kite and cover ground kite skiing.

Next destination, Plowfield.

The lava field slowly thinned.

Snowy grounds as he reaches the small mountain range in southwest Iceland with

a hugely popular ski resort.

Laufjörd has 15 kilometers of easy and intermediate slopes.

Good enough for cackle skiers, but not much of a challenge for a professional

like Mike.

But he has something else in mind.

Setting up right now to go kite skiing. We're in Iceland.

We're in a country that's covered in snow.

Beautiful here.

And I'm just looking for a good new mode of transportation after spending some

time on the bike.

I think now that I'm on snow, the kite comes out.

This is probably the most efficient way to move around Iceland.

I kiteboard back home in Bermuda, so I'm...

I'm betting and hoping that I'll pick this up pretty quickly and easily and

pain-free.

For a kite skier, the high-speed winds of Iceland's mountains are exactly what

the guards ordered, except for the fine print, which says, no guarantee.

When I first showed up to kite ski, there was another guy out kiting, and he

had a slightly bigger kite than me. So I got a little nervous when he started

packing up, saying there wasn't enough wind for his 18 meter when I was flying

a 15.

That's funny, because I thought for sure in Iceland, I was like, I won't need

anything bigger than a 15. They're known for having a lot of wind.

We do have a lot of wind most of the time.

Yeah, just not when I need it, huh? Yeah, yeah.

So you want to give this a try?

Yeah, let's get this guy up in the air.

It's just going to fall.

There isn't any wind and I'm struggling to get my kite up.

But there just isn't enough wind right now so I can pull it up off the ground

but it's just going to collapse on itself and drop back down anyway.

That's probably not going to go back up.

The wind is too light, basically.

I'm giving up. I'm going home.

Go do it.

I want to say thanks for coming out and I really appreciate it. Thank you, Mike.

So the wind never built back up and I wasn't able to get the kite in the air.

So I'm getting a little frustrated.

Nothing's working out. I'm going to go across the road and go ski for a bit.

When it comes to weather, nothing here sticks to plan.

Mike has no option but to move on to something he is more familiar with.

Except in Iceland, that may just not be enough.

Then again,

This icy island may have matters much.

Mike Wilson does not scare easy.

Coming up, it's a deep dive on an icy lake and a ride through smoking earth as

a rough, steaming water.

Something that can be done only in Iceland.

Let's see if an injury doesn't get in the way of Mike's adventure.

Tell me you're okay.