Being on the road in the Icelandic highlands in the rain doesn’t offer the wide views of the landscape, but it unfolds a fantastic depth effect, especially in deserts without any tree vegetation.
This picture almost looks like a black and white picture, if it hadn’t been this small blue spot in the cloudy sky. If you look closely, you can also guess that the mountain lines at the back are somehow overgrown with moss.
Rain, water and a moss-covered mountain ridge. A great and at the same time dramatic atmosphere when for a short moment the sun came out and gave me the right light on the ridge.
In the foreground, three red craters rising from a black ash/lava landscape, and in the background, a mighty highland river running along in front of moss-covered mountains. This is the Icelandic highlands in its purest form. Especially when a blanket of rain clouds still lies ominously over the landscape.
In the slightly different angle of view, you can see what a special feature the black craters with their red rim form. There, only a large black plain can be seen, through which the highland track extends to the river bank: read more or write a comment …
A landscape full of rhyolite valleys and a small river winding through the middle. Isn’t it great what views a drone can capture?
I’ve enjoyed this many times in the lonely areas of the Icelandic Highlands. Again and again you could see man-made tracks through patches of moss. I avoided this destruction of nature and then used the drone to put the »tripod« in impossible places.
I had been to this geothermal area once before in 2021, but in completely different conditions. At that time it had rained for days and even on that day the clouds were still so low that nothing could be seen of the mountains around it. They could only be glimpsed above the rhyolite ridges.
In addition, I didn’t have a drone with me to approach the fumaroles without damaging or even destroying the mosses. Now I had seen some fumaroles steaming slightly away from the Rhyolite Valley and decided to fly there once with the drone, because access via mossy areas was clearly forbidden. I was amazed that I would see such a colourful landscape in front of me or under the drone with the sunlight. From the side, I had only seen the rhyolite slope and the steam plume behind it.
On the other side of the ridge on which the track runs is a valley built up of rhyolite on both sides, from which fumaroles also steam out in some places. The panorama below shows the whole valley: read more or write a comment …
In 2021 I had already been to Háifoss and Granni, its nearby waterfall. At that time, however, we looked down on the waterfall from the upper reaches or into its lower reaches and the spray from the waterfall.
This time I wanted to take my time and hike to the valley floor of the river Fossá í Þjórsárdal to perceive the height of the waterfall in a different way than if you only look from above. But I have to admit, I’m always attracted to waterfalls by the contrasting, dramatic motifs. As in 2021 from the upper reaches, now looking down on the valley floor. Or photographed from the valley floor itself in the following image: read more or write a comment …
Kerlingarfjöll also has its river with a horseshoe-shaped valley meander. This is the Innri-Ásgarðsá River, which flows from the Hveradalir valley down to the highland plain. It passes also Highland Base Kerlingarfjöll, which was also our base camp for a few days. For me, this was the farewell from Kerlingarfjöll.
But of course with a view back to the mountain area we hiked the last days: read more or write a comment …