It was once again one of those gray, rain-cloud-covered days in Iceland, but at the same time the days of lush green! I had arrived at Skógafoss and found the waterfall itself quite boring, although it thundered with great force on a width of 25 meters 60 meters into the depth. However, I had made up my mind before leaving for Iceland to hike above the waterfall in its river valley. The route is part of the long-distance hiking route Laugavegur from Landmannalaugar to Skógar, which runs here as a long day hike from Þórsmörk between the glaciers Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull. But I didn’t want to hike all the way to the ridge, especially because the weather with the constant drizzle didn’t invite to a day hike either.
So I had climbed up the steps next to the waterfall and set out for a nice 11 km hike. The days before I had made it my own to pay as little attention as possible to the gray sky and look more down on the details. The river valley offered a lot of that. Many waterfalls can be discovered above Skógafoss, valley walls covered with mosses, blocked river sections…
Sometimes the river was barely visible, the trail usually runs a bit off the edge of the valley, so I had to wait for occasional cuts to get a view of the riverbed.
But there were hardly any quiet river sections. Deep down in the valley, partly between steep rock faces, the river was raging, around the corner probably another small waterfall.
Shortly before I made my way back, because above the hiking trail was only in the fog and the drizzle also began to run under my clothes, I arrived at the Powerfalls. He is still significantly higher than pictured here, but further forward I should not and did not want to go. I find it already so impressive enough, as he squeezes through the rocks at the top by a half as wide place, to then fall down on a broad front.
Leave a Reply