Photo Essay: Skogafoss

Skogafoss can be seen from the main road on the way to Vik. It's stunning and one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland at a width of 82 feet with a 200 foot drop. There is a sleep path with stairs up along side of the falls and on a nice sunny day, the spray from the falls brings out beautiful rainbows.

Skogafoss is located in the small village of Skogar with about 25 people. This village is home to a folk museum that is opened daily, Hotel Skogar with beautiful views of the falls and a restaurant as well.

Seljalandsfoss: Bucket List Completion

Seljalandsfoss has been on my bucket list for years. It is actually the main reason I even wanted to go to Iceland in the first place. I'd see amazing pictures of the falls in a vibrant orange glow from the setting sun surrounded by bright green grasses and moss. The falls looked like it came from a dream world and I wanted to experience it for myself since I'm a mega waterfall lover.



We had already had such an eventful first day and done so much, mom and I were pretty exhausted. But lucky for us, the falls can be seen from the Hvolsvöllur to Vik route and on our way to our guesthouse for that night.

As soon as we came around the curve, I saw it and acted like a 6 year old girl getting to meet her first Disney Princess in Disney World. Seljalandsfoss was as magical as I thought it would be. Since it wasn't sunny at all this day, I didn't get to see the beautiful orange glow from the sunset. But I still got to see my dream waterfall :).



There were also two other mini waterfalls falling off of the same area as well. I walked the path to the side that was laid out and ran up to the top of the second one to see the view of the area.



There are multiple viewpoints you can get from the falls while you're there if you visit. There is a platform that you can walk up to view it from the side and the path leads down to get behind it. The wind was blowing very hard and it's super wet behind there, so instead of taking my clumsy butt back there, I just admired it from my nice little side view. You can also climb up a steep but short path up a hill on the other side of it as well for another angle.



Even though it's not the biggest or even considered the best waterfall, I still loved it.

*Note for visitors: During the winter time or at night, the falls are eliminated by bright lights, making the falls come alive during the darkness. If you're lucky, you can even experience the breathtaking northern lights over the falls as well. Make sure you know how set your cameras because it's going to be one helluva site. :)




This is part of the #sundaytravlerseries with Ice Cream and Permafrost and don't forget to support all of the other participants! :)

Dettifoss

Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume of water and has a reputation of being one of the most powerful waterfalls. It sits on a river that flows from the Vatnajokull ice cap and there's a few other waterfalls in the area as well.

Getting to the waterfall was very... uh... interesting. We ignored our GPS and took a newer road that was just recently built, which was the better choice because this side had port-a-potties (ew) and a better view of the falls.



The falls isn't too far from the parking lot and was only about 800 to 900 meters away. But, we didn't realize it would still be covered under a foot of snow! The path was well marked and carved out by previous hikers, so it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. Some of the trail made me nervous though because of the "Stay on trail! Deep waters nearby." Deep water nearby?!? I tread very carefully after reading that one!



Once we finally reached the beautiful Dettifoss, it was difficult to get a good picture. Because of all the waterfall mist and the cold, the lower region, where the best view points are, were marked off due to the frozen ground. Although it looked like someone had been down there recently, I was not going down there in my little sketchers and risk slipping off of the side to get the picture I wanted. I was perfectly fine viewing the falls from where I was. Dettifoss was beautiful, but maybe I'm bias because of my love for waterfalls.



But there were also some mega mean looking clouds coming our way and we needed to snap, admire and run back before we got slammed by whatever it was that was coming for us. We carefully but speedly made our way back and just as we came to the car, the storm unleashed its power. Down came ice and snow, covering our car and the roads before we could get away. Luckyily though, we made it out fine and left the big wall of white behind us. On to our next destination.

Svartifoss in Skaftafell National Park

After our wonderful two hour glacier walk, we planned on hiking to Svartifoss. Little did I know, it was a four mile round trip. Once our hike was over on the glacier and we sat down to eat, I knew there was no way we could do that. So we planned to return in the morning before our Jokusarlon boat tour.

When we returned in the morning, I double checked our maps and the description of the hike. It said the hike should take us about two to two and a half hours and be about 7 km round trip. That's what were planning on. What we didn't plan on was our GPS taking us on a secret route that would cut our time in half.



There's this road a little bit further up and a parking area down at the bottom of the hill but our GPS man told us to keep going up and the warning sign said the road was only monitored June 1 through September 1. So we kept going. We didn't see anyone and no one tried to stop us.



After an extremely steep drive up and making it to the top, we kind of looked around trying to find out where we were. There were these cute little houses built into the mountain on one side and cliffs with stretches of land on the otherside. There was a spot big enough to park two cars, so we parked ours and got out to look around. We found a hiking trail that said Svartifoss and we began our two and a half hour trek up.



Five minutes after hiking straight up a mountain, we saw a sign that said Svartifoss was only .5 km away from where we were. Uhh... What?!? The hiking guide and all other signs said it would be a 3.5 km hike!! Some how, we had significantly decreased our walking time and mileage by taking that turn at the other parking lot. I'm still not even sure if we were allowed up there but we hastened our pace after that sign. The clouds were not looking promising. The last part of the hike was down hill and made it easy but it is some what difficult if you have knee problems.



Svartifoss is not as big as the pictures make it look but worth a visit. If you take the hike you're supposed to take, you get views of one of the glacier tongues near by along with another waterfall and nature life.