The majority of the day was spent in and around Iceland’s biggest National Park, which is centered around Europe’s biggest glacier: The Vatnajökull. I don’t know why it’s not called an icecap, because that’s what it is.
The blue line on the map shows the park boundary.
Most of the heavy lifting to cover today’s activities is done by this video:
We started early, leaving the Adventure Hotel Gierland at 8:30. It was a glorious sunny morning. Our first stop came almost immediately – the Stjórnarfoss waterfall, still hiding in the shade of its canyon.
And speaking of canyons. Next stop was a deliciously photogenic one.
With a name that could choke an English bloke – Fjaðrárgljúfur – it also features its own half-decent waterfall.
You can see where I was perched by the shadow. There was a nice half-hour hiking path along this precarious rim. The whole place is (or was) private property, but is, I believe, now preserved.
Then it was into the park. The first, and major stop of the day was the Skaftafell area, where I got to do a wonderful 4¾-mile hike with 1000 feet of elevation gain through amazingly varied terrain.
It began with a side-hill climb through a forest of Downy Birch (Betula pubescens), also called the European White Birch. That’s featured first in the video.
Then it was up out of the forest and through some scrub to an open ridge of tundra vegetation and a fantastic view of the Skaftafellsjökull, which is what they call this arm of the glacier.
At the high point of the hike, I took another video clip with a panoramic view, which is included in the video report posted above.
Then it was back down into the forest again and on to a distinctive waterfall called ‘Black Falls’, or Svartifoss, which tumbles down over a cliff made of giant hexagonal basalt columns.
Note the broken pieces of columns that litter the valley in the foreground. Basalt columns form when lava cools slowly; the direction of the columns indicates the direction that the heat was flowing. There are hundreds of places where it occurs around the world. My favorite is Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Here’s a view taken fifty years ago (summer 1972) when I passed through the area:
The formation has even been spotted on Mars. There aren’t many places in the world where this unusual formation is combined with a waterfall, but I did find one that compares well. Hikers in Oregon area may have heard of Abiqua Falls, about thirty-five miles east of Salem.
As I returned to the visitor center at Skaftafell, the sky was clearing after a period of late morning rain, and the summit of Iceland’s highest mountain, 6921-foot Hvannadalshnúkur, was emerging through the parting clouds.
Hvannadalshnúkur is the highest point of the massive active volcano complex called Öræfajökull, the broad scope of which is pictured in the featured photo at the top of this post.
That view was taken from the famous Glacier Lagoon, Jökulsárlón. Here’s another view with wider angle:
This is a very popular tourist spot, right along the Ring Road highway. In the video, I feature a shot of an amphibious vehicle roaring into the water and sailing away. The lagoon is also a popular place for kayaking.
I was surprised to learn that this lagoon did not exist until the latter half of the 20th century. Before that, the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier that feeds it with icebergs was right up against the shoreline of the ocean.
And along that shoreline today lies what is called Diamond Beach, where remnants of the icebergs wash up on the deep black sand and seem to glisten like diamonds.
Diamond Beach was our last stop of the day. I had some time to ramble around, so here, just for fun, are a couple more views:
That evening we settled in at the Hotel Smyrlabjörg, about half an hour west of the town of Höfn, which would be our first stop on Day 20. More to come!
Oh would I love to visit this place in person, so thankyou for sharing your fabulous travels.