By Theresa Hogue
In the middle of the Icelandic desert, struggling along on a broken foot and with no signs of civilization for miles, Dan Mulligan didn't feel discouraged. He was only half way through his hike from the northern to the southern tip of Iceland, but he knew he could control the pain enough to finish the 400-mile journey on foot, even if the injury slowed him down.
His optimism wavered a few days later, when his makeshift crutches, a pair of trekking poles, were stolen when he stopped to rest at an inn. Whoever stole the poles knew Mulligan had been injured, which really bothered the intrepid hiker.
"I was obviously the only hiker there," he said. "They knew it. It was a bad thing."
The theft didn't stop Mulligan, and he continued his hike without the poles, once using a piece of rebar he'd found in a river for support, and finally pilfering a couple of mop handles he found in an empty cabin to replace his poles.
"I felt kind of guilty," he said sheepishly of taking the mop handles, but they did their job.
Mulligan graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in anthropology in 1997. He had lived in Corvallis since the early 1980s, when he was pursuing an undergraduate degree in technical journalism. He now lives in Cody, Wyo., where he does archaeological contract work, but still considers Corvallis his home.
William Mulligan of Corvallis is used to having an adventurous son. He recalled trips Dan took to Ireland and remote corners of North America, always coming home with stories from his trips. Once, Dan came across a huge herd of elk and walked in their midst. Another time he slept alongside mountain goats.
"He travels all over. What can you do?" Dan's father said. "We did worry but he's very careful. He always takes enough food."
William was impressed with his son's latest adventure in Iceland.
"It really was something else," he said. The worst part for William was thinking of his son lugging 85 pounds of gear across Iceland on his broken foot.
"He's an adventurer," William said."
Archaeologists have the luxury of having winters off, Mulligan said, and he frequently takes long solo hikes, but his trek to Iceland was an adventure of another sort. Mulligan only had a small window of opportunity to hike across the island country before winter storms made roads impassable, and though he began the trip in mid-August, fierce winter windstorms frequently trapped him in his tent.
"It's beautiful," he said of Iceland, a place he's visited five times. "The countryside is beautiful. It's a volcanic landscape and there are active volcanoes and massive glaciers. Within an hour's drive there are incredibly varied landscapes."
Iceland is about the size of Washington state, and has only 280,000 people, most of them clustered along the edges of the island. The center of Iceland is barren and sparsely inhabited, especially the Icelandic desert, where on certain days Mulligan would see perhaps one or two trucks pass him on the road.
"There are very few villages and I couldn't buy anything," he said. He carried all his supplies on his back, and rarely had a chance to stop for the night at inns and farmhouses along the way.
The desert is so barren that it's become the place of legend. Iceland was once a prison colony, a place where exiled criminals from Scandinavia were sent to live or die. Those exiled criminals became mythical figures, and through the ages were transformed into trolls and ghosts. Local legend says their voices are still heard during the wild windstorms that plague the interior.
It was in the middle of the desert that Mulligan suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left foot. He'd already suffered from massive blisters and pulled muscles, but this was different. He thinks he stepped on a rock wrong, but whatever the cause, suddenly a burning spike of pain shot through him.
"It was really hard to walk, but the closest village was 150 miles away," he said. "I couldn't get help. I could have flagged a truck down but it wasn't bad enough for that."
Mulligan didn't consider ending his hike. He said he figured the break wasn't that bad, or he wouldn't be able to put his weight on it. He guessed correctly. It turned out that he had a stress fracture. He didn't seek medical attention, but focused on completing the hike.
"Nothing's really stopped me," he said.
The Icelanders he met, even before his injury, thought he was insane for hiking across the interior, and people frequently stopped him along the road to ask just what he was doing in Iceland. His only answer was he just wanted to hike.
It took two and a half weeks after he broke his foot before Mulligan completed his 49-day hike across Iceland. He flew home to his parents' place in Corvallis, and there, finally, went to a doctor, who placed a cast on his leg that will remain for at least six more weeks.
The injury hasn't stopped Mulligan's plans to keep traveling, but he's hoping his next trip is a little less strenuous.
"I'd like to go to Ireland and go from pub to pub, and gain weight this time instead of losing it."