This is going to be a very photo heavy post because the Myvatn region, near the town of Reykjahlid, had so much beauty packed into such a small space! After half a day in Akureyri, the largest city in the North of Iceland we headed East on the ring road towards the geothermal wonderland of Myvatn. We stopped at Godafoss waterfall on the way, and we were a bit overwhelmed by the number of people. Up until this point we have spent most of our time in Iceland off the beaten track, in less traveled areas, so seeing crowds of people was a bit of a shock for us and was the one thing about the Myvatn area that we really did not enjoy.
Just outside of Reykjahlid we stopped to see Grjotogja, the hotspring inside a cave that they used to film Jon and Ygrittes love scene in Game of Thrones. It used to be a popular bathing spot, but volcanic activity in the 70s spiked the water temperature and although its been cooling off in recent years its still too hot to be safe. The cave isn't nearly as spacious as it looks on TV (not surprising), but we managed to get a nice vantage point for some photos at the end of the pool and then crawled through a small gap in the rock to get out on top of the cave and scramble down to our car.
After setting up our tent at the campground we took a trip to Myvatn Nature Baths, often referred to as the "Blue Lagoon of the North." The Blue Lagoon is a world famous man-made hot pool outside of Reykjavik, but at $85 a person and often overcrowded we decided it was a "must see" that we wouldn't mind missing. We were told that Myvatn was half the price and twice as nice, and we weren't disappointed. Several large man-made rock pools with a gravel bottom are filled with water from the National power company's bore hole in Bjarnarflag. The water contains all kinds of beneficial minerals that give it a cloudy bright blue color, and it comes out of the ground at 130 degrees celcius so it has to be cooled down a lot before its pumped into the pools. There was a nice view over the valley of the mountains in the distance, and we stayed until after dark so we could enjoy the sunset and the stars.
| | We had originally planned to spend two nights in the area, but we were not impressed by the facilities (or the cost) of the campground and it was so crowded that we decided to get up early the next morning and try to fit it all into one day. We started the morning with a quick hike up to the rim of the Hverfjall crater, a perfectly symmetrical round crater about 140 meters deep and a full kilometer in diameter, then we did some backtracking the way we had come before to do a little hike around the pseudo-craters at Skutustadagigar. |
They weren't formed by eruptions like most craters, instead they were caused by explosions of steam from under the surface as lava flowed over the wetlands and lake. The steam vents caused rock and lava to build up around them forming small circular and semi-circular craters along the lake shore.
| We drove past Reykjahlid to Storagja, another hot pool in a cave. That one was also not recommended to swim in because of dangerous bacteria levels, but several pairs of discarded underwear in the canyon attests to the fact that you can't fix stupid. We hiked a little ways down the canyon where the cave was located and then headed back to the car to continue East. We drove over a chain of mountains and turned into the parking lot for Namafjall Hverir, a high-temperature geothermal area with steaming vents, fumaroles and bubbling mud pots. | |
There were massive clouds of steam and sulfur rising from the ground and streaming out of the mountainside in the distance. The crust is very thin in spots and the soil temperatures could reach 100 degrees Celcius, so we stuck to the marked paths as we walked through the hellish landscape.
Our next stop was Viti crater, about 300 meters across, filled with deep blue water and surrounded by a geothermal area with steaming mountains in the distance. We hiked up to the rim, then all the way around the crater for views of the multi-color mountains ranging from deep black to green to tan and white. On the side of the road on the way back to the ring road was a continuously running hot shower, right out in the open. We have no idea what it was meant for, but we used it to wash the sticky mud from our shoes.
Our next stop was Viti crater, about 300 meters across, filled with deep blue water and surrounded by a geothermal area with steaming mountains in the distance. We hiked up to the rim, then all the way around the crater for views of the multi-color mountains ranging from deep black to green to tan and white. On the side of the road on the way back to the ring road was a continuously running hot shower, right out in the open. We have no idea what it was meant for, but we used it to wash the sticky mud from our shoes.
| The last places on our list for the day were Dettifoss and Selfoss waterfalls. We took road 862 to the parking area then hiked about a kilometer to Dettifoss, the highest-volume waterfall in Europe. To say we were impressed would be a massive understatement...we were completely caught off guard by how amazing it was. It seemed much more impressive than Niagara falls, maybe because it was more remote and there weren't tourist shops and cafes every 10 feet. The falls are 330 feet wide and 144 feet tall and the water crashes over it with such force that it creates a massive spray cloud at the bottom, completely obscuring the river for at least 50 feet. The water rushes over the edge at 96,000 gallons per second and the sound it makes is unbelievable. We hiked another kilometer upstream to Selfoss, another impressive cascade wider than Dettifoss, but only 30 feet tall and not as powerful. Both falls are part of the Jokulsa a Fjollum river, fed by the melt water from Vatnajokull glacier. | |
Since we didn't want to spend another night at the crowded campground in Reykjahlid we planned to drive all the way to Egilsstadir, but we took a chance on an 8k detour to Modrudalur when we saw a camping sign, and ended up finding our favorite campground in Iceland so far. We followed the signs and pulled into a field full of goats (local landscaping crew I guess...), and then down past a small turf building into a level field with campsites divided by turf walls. It was the first time on our whole trip the sky was clear enough to see the stars, and we cooked dinner in the quaint little turf house, joined by the resident cat. Modrudalur is the highest inhabited place in Iceland at 1,539 ft in elevation and it made for a cold night and a heavy layer of frost on the tent in the morning. We had planned on getting out to look for the northern lights, but neither of us could bear the thought of leaving our cozy sleeping bag in the middle of the night!
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