This week brought the kind of summer sun that garners local headlines about an “epic heatwave,” which in Reykjavík means 68° Fahrenheit. On Friday, I took a long walk around the city and the mood was ebullient, with Nauthólsvík beach full of sunbathers midday and most people opting to soak in the sea instead of the geothermal pool. I decided to take advantage of the favorable forecast and rented a car for the weekend, aiming to explore some relatively nearby places that I haven’t been to yet. I didn’t want to book a hotel, so I split the travel into two long day trips: heading north to Vesturland on Saturday and then driving around the “golden circle” area on Sunday.
My first stop was a hike to see Glymur, the second tallest waterfall in Iceland, which is tucked into a narrow canyon at the head of Hvalfjörður. The trail is over a thousand feet of elevation gain, and rises steeply enough to be glad for rope supports along the way. You also have to cross the river twice, once by balancing on a log that is only placed seasonally, and then back again when you reach the top. The second crossing is a very cold wade through a wide stretch of river, still calm before it cascades over the edge. I’m hoping to do this hike again in a couple of weeks with a friend who will be visiting, so it was good to learn about the river crossings ahead of time. I’ll bring a towel and some extra socks next time.
I also went to see the Grábrók Crater, which I’ve driven by numerous times but never with the right circumstances to stop. It provides an incredible view of the surrounding lava fields from the top.
In comparison to the road trip with my parents two weeks ago, when the lupine were just beginning to sprout, they are now everywhere! These purple vertical flowers line the sides of nearly every country road, and fill whole valleys along the sea. I know that they’re an invasive species in Iceland, but they’re beautiful.
On Sunday, I headed east, looking to avoid the ring road in favor of smaller routes through areas I hadn’t seen before. Route 435 to 360 took me along the southern edge of Þingvallavatn, the massive lake that is home to Þingvellir National Park. This is a major energy-generating area, and I enjoyed seeing the steam plumes of the Nesjavellir power plant and visiting the exhibition at the Ljósafossstöð hydroelectric plant. One of the displays in the exhibition was a simple chart of energy usage in Iceland versus the rest of the world. Iceland uses 100% renewable energy, with hydropower accounting for nearly 3/4 of the pie and geothermal making up the difference, save a tiny sliver of wind power.
One thing I learned was the difference between hydropower plants like Ljósafossstöð, which can operate fairly consistently based on freshwater lakes and rivers, versus plants that capture power from the highland rivers, which have variable output depending on seasonal snow and glacial melt. Apparently that’s one area where wind power has been useful, letting them maintain higher reservoir heights in those locations if there is wind power to fill in the gaps.
Afterwards I visited Kerið Crater, which is interesting but unfortunately on the bus tour route and thus busier than I’d like. I also find their fee structure annoying. Most everywhere in Iceland there is a parking fee, since most of the sites are privately owned and the landowners need to recoup their cost of providing infrastructure for visitors. Kerið likes to advertise itself as having free parking, but that’s only because they charge an entrance fee. For me, a solo traveler, those are one and the same. But for a family that means the 700 kroner that is typical for parking is now multiplied by the number of people, which starts to feel excessive.
Perhaps the best thing about visiting Kerið was spotting something even more eye catching in the distance, a bright red spot on a mountain to the northeast. Leaving the crater, I drove towards that splash of color, winding up a dirt road towards what I could see upon closer inspection was a rock quarry. The exposed layers of earth were fantastically colorful: bright reds, yellows, and tans. A sole worker in the pit was filling a truck with volcanic debris, his yellow loader dwarfed by the size of the quarry walls.
While driving up to the quarry I saw some people in high-visibility vests in the hills, and assumed they were just walking their dogs. But when I reached the top there were numerous search and rescue vehicles, and I realized that this was a training exercise for rescue dogs. I talked with one of the trainers for a while, who told me about the different classifications the dogs can achieve, such as avalanche or water rescue certifications. They were taking advantage of the unusually warm weather to see how the dogs performed in those conditions. It was basically hide-and-seek, where the trainers would run off to lay in a valley on the other side of the hill and the dogs were given items of theirs to smell and go track them down.
The rest of the day was meandering. I stopped by the Friðheimar greenhouses to try their famous tomato soup. I’ll never pass up a chance to see Gullfoss, and was surprised to see that the top viewing area now extends further than I remember. I also went to Brúarfoss, which I had never seen before, and was blown away by the uncanny bright blue water. On the way back I stopped to see Þórufoss, which is one of those waterfalls that reminds you how incredible Iceland is because if it were anywhere else, it would be the main attraction, but here it’s a lesser-known spot with barely a sign to indicate its presence (although it was a Game of Thrones filming location).
