Beautiful how the outflow from the lake winds through the barren landscape. The sun came somewhere a little through the cloud cover and let the water of the river glisten.
In the background just black hill ranges and above them dark rain clouds. In the middle crosses a highland road. You’ll probably only see it on a big monitor if you look at the picture full screen.
It is always amazing how individual plants can survive in the black deserts of the Icelandic highlands. There are no trees here, the more moss and isolated small tufts of grass, as here in a slope.
This day was supposed to be completely in the rain, but exciting motifs were still there. So this ridge, whose summit region was covered in moss and had jet-black scree slopes. Small pebbles were everywhere on the slope, so it looked like salt liquorice. And you can almost talk about cotton candy the way the clouds lay over the ridge — if it weren’t for the green moss.… The other two pictures also show this very well, if not even better. read more or write a comment …
This picture shows far away my photo friend Kåre Johansen, who was with me in our group in the highlands on Iceland. After the sunny day and the visit to Landmannalaugar we had again the typical rainy weather of the previous days. I would almost like to think it had rained even harder. You can see it well in the rain clouds on this picture, which had almost completely swallowed the green mountains in the background. Nevertheless it was exciting to find typical Icelandic motives in this weather.
I named this picture »The Photographer« because it typically shows Kåre, who always looked for his motives far away from us.
Already during the ascent to the upper part of Laugarhraun, respectively to Brennisteinsalda, I noticed east of it the mountain Blánúkur. It has a completely different coloring than the other mountain ridges in Landmannalaugar. Not yellow/red, but in with a blue/grey rock at its summit.
It consists mostly of pitchstone, a rhyolitic rock formed by eruptions under ice age glaciers, which explains the unusual blue/grey color. To represent the 943 m high and so elongated mountain, I have once again in panoramic photo, which can be seen next to a detailed picture in the whole post: read more or write a comment …
In the upper part of Laugarhraun, on the slope of Brennisteinsalda volcano, there is a small geothermal area. Already from below I saw the steam plumes of the fumaroles in the backlight. But on top I liked the view into the steam and behind it the cooled lava flow Laugarhraun and the peaks of Landmannalaugar. To the right, the ridge of Blánúkur is already visible, standing out with its glaucous gray color of the summit and the greenish rock flanks. A little more to see, but still clearly cut here in my second picture. But more about that in a later post. read more or write a comment …
At the western end of the Laugarhraun lava flow, this large meadow opened up. Sheep were grazing on it and another colorful mountain range rose in the background. In front of me was the valley of Námskvísl, which runs north of the lava flow along the slope of Suðurnámur. This scene demanded a pano, of which I show here in the main picture only a small section: read more or write a comment …