Hikes

Eldgjá is a gigantic canyon created by the largest volcanic eruption on earth in the last millennium. From a historical point of view, Eldgjá is definitely a fascinating place to visit.

Except for the Eldgjá canyon, there’s also a very picturesque waterfall called Ófærufoss right in the heart of Eldgjá.

But does Eldgjá belong to one of the most beautiful places in the Icelandic Highlands, as many people describe it? Well, we are not so sure about that, and we will explain why below.

Map of Eldgjá

Eldgjá hiking trails

There are three main hiking trails in Eldgjá:

• Ófærufoss waterfall; easy 1.5 hours long out and back hike
• Small circle; moderate 2 hours long loop trail
• Gjátindur large circle; moderate 5 hours long loop trek

The two most popular hiking spots in Eldgjá are Ófærufoss waterfall and the peak of Gjátindur. The majority of visitors go only to the famous Ofaerufoss because it’s the most efficient option.

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Besides the main trails, there are also several traverse routes leading to the Highlands.

Ófærufoss waterfall

Hiking time: 1.5 hours round-trip
Difficulty: very easy
Trail Map: Ófærufoss hiking trail

Ofaerufoss is the legendary picturesque waterfall and the main attraction of Eldgjá. The waterfall is a must-see spot in the area we highly recommend visiting. It’s spectacular in any weather.

It’s an easy, well-marked walk that anyone can do. It took us less than 30 minutes to reach the Ófærufoss waterfall from the Eldgjá car park.

The shortest trail to Ófærufoss leads along the right/eastern bottom of the canyon and turns left/west right before the waterfall.

Small circle

Hiking time: 2 hours round-trip
Difficulty: easy to moderate
Trail Map: Small Circle hiking trail

If you want to enjoy Ófærufoss from more angles and the bird’s eye perspective, you can take a longer Small Circle hike.

This trek is a loop path extension of the easy bottom-of-the-canyon walk. After passing Ófærufoss, you will need to climb shortly to the eastern edge of the canyon. From there, you turn back south.

Once you finish the climb, you will also get nice views over the Eldgjá Canyon. You can take this loop trail in any direction. It’s a nice compromise between a short Ófærufoss walk and a long Gjátindur trek.

Gjátindur circle

Hiking time: 5 to 6 hours round-trip
Difficulty: moderate with one steeper climb
Trail Map: Gjátindur hiking trail

Gjátindur is the tallest peak in the Eldgjá area. By climbing Gjátindur on a nice day, you will be guaranteed to have the best views over the entire Eldgjá. But are these views worth the climb? Well…

It took us almost 6 hours to complete the loop trail to Gjátindur and back, including a stop at Ófærufoss and then a struggle to find the correct path. The hike to Gjátindur is moderately difficult, with one pretty steep ash climb. Otherwise, the trek isn’t anyhow dangerous. It’s just long (around 16 kilometers, or 10 miles).

Several different trails lead to Gjátindur. One of the trails leads inside the bottom of the canyon, while the other trail leads along the upper edge of the canyon, see the Eldgjá hiking map above.

Langisjór traverse trail

Hiking time: 1 to 2 days
Difficulty: moderate to difficult
Trail Map: Eldgjá Skaelingar hiking trail

Eldgjá Canyon is actually a part of the vast hiking area that stretches all the way in between the road F208 (Fjallabaksleið Nyrðri) in the southwest and Lake Langisjór in the northeast.

Numerous marked and unmarked remote trails connect Eldgjá to Langisjór and Uxatindar mountains in between. See the huge Eldgjá map.

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How to get to Eldgjá

To get to Eldgjá, you must take the F-roads F208 and F223, respectively. There are no buses or guided tours, so your only option is to drive or take a private tour.

Road F208

If you take the road F208 from the south, you have to cross one medium-sized river. You need to drive at least a medium-sized 4wd car to pass safely.

When you arrive by F208 from the north, you will encounter several small to medium-sized rivers to ford. This route is one of the most beautiful Icelandic highland roads.

We again recommend driving, at minimum, a medium-sized 4×4 car like Dacia Duster. That being said, if the conditions are ideal and the weather is dry enough, you may also pass with smaller 4wd cars like Toyota RAV4 or whatever is being called a 4×4 these days.

Road F223

F223 to Eldgjá is an easy F-road without any river crossings or other obstacles.

It’s a very short drive from the southern part of F208 (Fjallabaksleið Nyrðri). The only reason Eldgjárvegur is marked as an F-road is probably that it’s impossible to get there without using other F-roads.

Once you reach Eldgjá, there’s a huge car park with a ranger’s hut and modern toilets.

Is Eldgjá worth a visit?

Eldgjá is worth a visit if you have more time to explore the southern Icelandic Highlands. If you are short on time, we recommend other fantastic spots in the Highlands.

Interestingly enough, if you ask locals in Iceland to name a few most beautiful places in Iceland, many replies will include “Ásbyrgi” and/or “Eldgjá”. We have visited both, and both were actually slightly underwhelming in our opinion (and other foreign visitors’ opinions).

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Don’t get me wrong, both Eldgjá and Ásbyrgi are beautiful places to visit. But Iceland has so many unique gems to offer that Eldgjá or Ásbyrgi simply don’t measure up to many of them.

What is the Best Hike in Eldgjá?

If you have just a few hours dedicated to visiting Eldgjá, we suggest primarily seeing Ófærufoss. Ófærufoss waterfall was probably the highlight of our full-day visit to Eldgjá. Moreover, a hike to Ófærufoss is just an effortless walk, not even a hike.

If you have more time, you can do a longer hike to Gjátindur, the highest summit of Eldgjá. We suggest doing this hike only if you are really into hiking and have enough time. Once you climb the edge of the Eldgjá Canyon, there’s a nice viewpoint over the entire Eldgjá area from a bird’s eye viewpoint.

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However, to reach Gjátindur, you need to continue even further, and the view from the peak isn’t that special in our opinion. Definitely not if you compare it, for example, to nearby Sveinstindur, Bláhnúkur, or Thakgil.

Once again, don’t get me wrong, the Gjátindur hike is pretty. If you have time and energy, then go for it. It’s just not among our favorite ones in Iceland, not even close to it.

Our Eldgjá Experience

We visited Eldgjá at the end of July and did all the main treks. We hiked to Ófærufoss and then to Gjátindur for the best views over Eldgjá.

Ófærufoss hike

As expected, we met many fellow tourists along the way to Ófærufoss. Apart from tourists, we also met many infamous Icelandic midges 🙂 Eldgjá is actually the only place where we’ve ever used head-nets in Iceland.

Midges don’t bite, and they are not dangerous. They are just very pesky and persistent about getting into your nose and eyes, being attracted to wet spots. So either you will be waving your hand in front of you, or you’re gonna use head-nets.

Ófærufoss is totally worth a short walk. If I were to come here next time, Ófærufoss would be the only place I would visit again in Eldgjá. The waterfall is magnificent, and it will definitely make it to our list of favorite Icelandic waterfalls.

There’s even a huge viewpoint platform with seating. Rangers built ropes around the waterfall to protect the moss and tourists from falling into the waterfall. Despite the ropes, several arrogant visitors didn’t respect them and stepped on the moss to take better pictures anyway. This is how NOT to be a responsible tourist.

Gjátindur hike

After seeing Ófærufoss, we still had enough time and energy to hike more, and the weather was ugly everywhere else anyway. Thus, climbing Gjátindur made great sense.

We were equipped with hiking poles, head nets, and an old map, which showed we were supposed to be able to reach Gjátindur from the western trail. The map was terribly wrong. The only real trail leading to Gjátindur is the eastern trail, but more on that below.

Be sure to always check the safety warnings, road conditions, and weather forecast before embarking on any hike in Iceland!

The Bottom of the Canyon

Our hike to Gjátindur started by walking to Ófærufoss from the eastern bottom of the canyon which, right before the waterfall, turned to the west to reach the waterfall itself. After stopping at the waterfall, we continued further along the western bottom of the canyon in the north direction towards Gjátindur.

This part of the hike is a fairly easy walk on flat ground. I remember very sparse red marks, but we mostly just followed the well-trodden steps along the bottom of the canyon.

Ascent to the Edge of the Canyon

According to our map, we were supposed to turn left a few hundred meters before the canyon ended and begin ascending steeply. There were no marks, only steps of someone else walking before us.

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Thus, we followed the steps, which soon turned into a very slippery and steep ascent via the ash slope. Steps soon disappeared, and we reached the point where it was impossible to continue safely. We tried to find the correct western trail but without success.

After climbing down the ash slope, we instead turned right to the marked trail (yellow sticks if I remember correctly). This eastern trail to Gjátindur led via a pretty steep slope entirely consisting of ash. Thus, with every step we slipped back a bit, because ash rolled back together with us. This was the spot where hiking poles came in extremely handy.

Crossroads and the Ridge

After finishing the climb to the eastern ridge of the Eldgjá canyon, we soon reached the crossroad of several different trails. Some lead further toward the Langisjór area, while one leads to Gjátindur (yellow sticks). Another trail leads back to Eldgjá car park, but not via the bottom of the canyon, but rather via the upper eastern edge of it.

Once you finish this climb and get to the edge of the canyon in the Gjátindur direction, this is where the most beautiful views over Eldgjá will pop up in front of you. You can see the entire Eldgjá Canyon from the bird’s eye viewpoint and this sight is really magnificent.

We then continued towards the peak of Gjátindur via a marked trail, which was basically a pretty dull and rocky ascent. It took us roughly an hour to reach Gjátindur from the above-mentioned crossroad of routes.

The summit of Gjátindur

Gjátindur is the tallest possible viewpoint over the entire Eldgjá, so yes, you will be guaranteed 360° views if you hike on a day with good visibility. Despite the moody weather, we were lucky to have this good visibility.

Nevertheless, we were not overwhelmed by the views from Gjátindur. They were a bit monotonous and not that spectacular compared to many other amazing views we’d seen already at that time. Nice hike, nice views, but nothing out-of-this-world.

The weather felt a bit cold at the time of our visit, with some 5°C and light winds. Not ideal picnic weather, though. We started to feel cold even in all our layers after standing on Gjátindur for 5 minutes. Thus, we made a short protein bar break and started our descent back.

The Way Back

We decided to take a loop trail because we didn’t want to hike the same route twice. It was a good decision. Not only we avoided the unpleasant and steep ash slope descent, but we also saw Ófærufoss from a beautiful eastern ridge viewpoint.

The loop trail back from Gjátindur is a marked trail that leads along the upper edge of the eastern part of the Eldgjá Canyon. After more than halfway through the trail, you will reach an Ófærufoss viewpoint from the bird’s eye perspective, which is undoubtedly worth seeing. This is already a part of the “Small Circle” hike in Eldgjá. The trail then continues and descends back towards the car park.

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Snækollur is the highest peak of an amazingly beautiful Kerlingarfjöll. And guess what happens if you hike to the tallest point of the heavenly place? You will be getting once-in-a-lifetime views!

And that’s exactly what you will get once you climb to Snækollur on a nice day. Views above Kerlingarfjöll you will never forget.

Most Kerlingarfjöll visitors go just for the Hveradalir hot spring area and/or just visit the Kerlingarfjöll campsite area. Both of these are quite easy to hike, and this way, typically, everybody ends up visiting the same spots. Instead, we wanted to do something different this time. A hike to the highest peak of Kerlingarfjöll, Snækollur, seemed an ideal candidate.

Hike in a Nutshell

Hiking time: 4 to 7 hours round-trip (depends on the trail and conditions)
Length: 9.3km / 5.8mi
Difficulty: moderate to difficult
Season: July to September
Obstacles: slippery terrain, snowfields, sometimes bad visibility and sparse marking
Trail map: Snaekollur main hiking trail

Kerlingarfjöll Hiking Map

How to get to the Snækollur trailhead

It’s easy to reach Kerlingarfjöll by car via Kjölur (road 35, or former F35) and F347. You need a proper 4×4 car, though. We’ve already explained how to get to Kerlingarfjöll in our Guide to Kerlingarfjöll.

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Snækollur trailhead is just a few hundred meters from the main Hveradalir geothermal area. You can easily park there, similar to parking in Hveradalir.

When to hike Snækollur

We highly recommend hiking only from mid-July until mid-September, when the trails are clear of snow. Sometimes, when spring is hot enough, it may also be possible to do the hike a few weeks earlier. And vice versa, when summer is longer than usual, also a few weeks later.

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Regarding weather, we again highly recommend visiting only on days without rain or strong winds. Ideally, you aim for a day with good visibility. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to hike to Snækollur and see nothing from above.

How to hike Snækollur

Hike to Snækollur is challenging. It’s no easy walk. You need to be in good physical shape to climb all the way up. On the other hand, the Snækollur hike is not especially dangerous or exposed if you come at the right time, in the right shape, and follow the right trails.

Now what about equipment? I highly recommend you bring hiking poles and a satellite location device, for example, PLB, if any emergency occurs. Otherwise, just autumn hiking clothes are needed.

Expect very chilly weather. The temperature reached around 5°C (41°F) at noon in July, when we reached the peak of Snækollur. Kerlingarfjöll is one of the coldest areas in Iceland due to its proximity to two glaciers and a pretty high altitude.

Oh, and one last thing – if you want to do the hike as a loop, starting at an unmarked trail in Hveradalir (as we did), you will need to cross a river. In that case, bring some water shoes and a little towel.

Hiking trails to Snækollur

There is one main hiking trail to Snækollur. It begins next to the Hveradalir geothermal area car park and leads first to the peak of Fannborg and then to Snækollur. It can only be done as an out-and-back trail. The main route is the easiest one for orientation.

Then there are also several unmarked hiking trails leading to and from Snækollur. It was almost impossible to get any info about ANY of these trails, even the marked one, before our trip. This was also one of the main reasons why I decided to write this article.

All the alternative routes to make a “loop trail” are unmarked or barely marked. We’ve chosen one of these loop trails. And it was pretty hard to follow. I recommend instead taking the marked trail to Snaekollur and back the same way.

Before every trip check weather forecast, road conditions, and safety warnings.

Fannborg car park to Snaekollur – the main trail

When you drive to Hveradalir, coming from the Kerlingarfjöll campsite direction, there’s an often-overlooked detour left, a few hundred meters before reaching Hveradalir. This detour will take you to the Fannborg car park.

This is the beginning spot for the only marked trail to Snaekollur. We took this route on our way down, returning from the peak. This is the recommended trail. We describe it in detail in the section about the descent.

Hveradalir car park to Snaekollur – mostly unmarked

This is the trail we took on our way up. It starts at a Hveradalir hot springs area (marked) and follows as an unmarked detour towards the river crossing. You then steeply and steadily climb upwards to Fannborg, where you will join the marked main Fannborg trail. For more details, see our Snækollur experience below.

Other trails – mostly unmarked

There are multiple other, mostly unmarked trails leading to and around Snaekollur – see our Snækollur trails map. Most of them were covered by deep snow at the time of our visit in July. I strongly advise against taking these trails without a local guide. There’s a risk of an avalanche and dangerous falls.

Our Snækollur hiking experience

Since our first visit to Kerlingarfjöll, I wanted to see Kerlingarfjöll also in nice weather, which seemed almost impossible. I’ve been watching the forecast for quite some time, and Kerlingarfjöll had the worst weather possible for most of the time. The same happened last July when I was planning our 2nd visit.

Trail and Conditions

We began our hike to Snaekollur at 11:00 after a long morning drive from Selfoss to Kerlingarfjöll in the middle of July. The weather was very nice when it came to Kerlingarfjöll – cloudy, no rain, little wind, and occasional sun fighting through the clouds.

It was not ideal, though. From time to time, some huge fog clouds appeared, especially the higher we were on the trail. Nevertheless, this was definitely very good weather for the hike.

We chose a loop trail that starts in Hveradalir hot spring area, follows a marked path in Hveradalir towards Hverabotn, and then it turns into an unmarked trail as a direct ascent to Fannborg. Once reaching Fannborg, it then continues via a classical partially marked trail to Snækollur.

We finished at Snækollur, turned back, took the main marked trail down via snowfields to reach the north-eastern Fannborg car park, and then walked back to Hveradalir. This was our Snækollur hiking trail in a nutshell. Now how did it look in detail?

Ascent from Hveradalir

We left the car in a classical Hveradalir car park, where visitors of all the Hveradalir hot spring area park. Firstly, we descended to the famous hot spring area. Several short hiking trails lead all around Hveradalir, so we struggled a bit to connect to the correct path toward Snaekollur.

Following the Wikiloc trail on our cell phones definitely helped a lot. In Hveradalir, we turned left, climbed stairs onto a nearby hill, and continued hiking the otherworldly landscapes of Kerlingarfjöll for a few hundred meters.

The marked trail then starts turning right. However, this is the direction toward another hot spring area called Hverabotn, not the right direction for our hike. Firstly, we got confused and hiked a little bit in this direction, but then we realized we had to take a different – unmarked – trail, so we did.

We followed some barely visible footsteps, which anyway disappeared for most of the time, and mostly used Wikiloc GPS trail for orientation.

Please never ever step on moss or fragile orange soil. It may never recover. If unsure, you better take a marked trail.

River crossing

We reached the point where there was no other way than to cross the nearby river. We searched for a suitable spot for a while and had to descend down to the river via slippery hills, following the almost invisible footsteps and our GPS.

At times even GPS didn’t help because its precision is relatively poor without a satellite connection. Nonetheless, we were surrounded by the fantastic beauty of Kerlingarfjöll and full of energy and motivation to reach Snaekollur.

We finally found an (at least for us) suitable crossing point. We removed our shoes, put on our wading shoes, and quickly crossed the ice-cold river stream.

Soon after the river crossing, another obstacle appeared right in front of us. A large, melting snowpack was blocking the (at least what we thought to be) trail, so we had to find a safe and careful way around it.

A word of caution – never step on any moss in Iceland, and don’t step on the ground in a way that the soil below your feet falls down. This can cause erosion to the fragile soil. If this is the case, find a different path or turn back.

The Worst Part

After about 20 minutes of searching for the best spot to climb the nearby hill, we finally found our way. We finished the very steep and slippery ascent with the substantial help of our hiking poles. This was one of the worst spots of the entire hike – hard orientation and risk of falling down. That’s why we instead recommend taking the main marked trail.

The footsteps completely disappeared at this point, and we only had to use our GPS trail. GPS was inaccurate and often led directly via deeper snowfields, which didn’t feel safe to cross through.

During this part, we basically had to traverse a lot between snowfields and take special care to step only on stones and gravel and head towards Fannborg. This is precisely the point where you need good visibility. I cannot imagine heading towards Fannborg if we didn’t see it before us.

Fannborg ascent

What followed was the steep and steady ascent towards Fannborg, with the ground covered by trillions of pieces of broken stones. With each step, we were getting more and more rewarded with better and better views of the entire Kerlingarfjöll area. You will not get these views anywhere else, only from this hike.

After about less than an hour, we successfully connected to the (supposedly) yellow-marked hiking trail leading from the left (from the Fannborg car park) and continuing up to Fannborg and Snaekollur. The only thing was – the marks were not there 🙂 However, the footsteps on the ground were more evident, so we could follow them more easily. Finally, some guidance.

We reached the peak of Fannborg after 2.5 hours of hiking from Hveradalir. On a nice day with good visibility, views from Fannborg are already more than impressive.

If, for whatever reason, you are unable or just don’t want to continue all the way to Snaekollur, you don’t need to regret it too hard because you will already see close to the best available views from Fannborg.

Nevertheless, we initially thought we’d already reached Snækollur when we got to Fannborg. Only after checking the GPS, I wondered why it still shows less than one more kilometer to go.

Unfortunately, after we climbed to Fannborg, the fog settled down more intensely, interrupting our breathtaking views. At that moment, we contemplated ending the hike at Fannborg and turning back because continuing with almost zero visibility didn’t make sense. Moreover, Snækollur seemed still quite far away and not that easy to reach with a lot of snow on the trail.

Snækollur ridge

My cousin co-hiker, however, persuaded me to finish our hiking plan, no matter the weather. And luckily, I agreed. In the same way, the fog had started to settle down, it slowly faded away in a few minutes, and our spectacular views got even better.

360° views into Kerlingarfjöll, Hveradalir, and around all nearby hills and hot springs partially covered with snow and partially with out-of-this-world orange and blue colors were simply overwhelming.

That being said, we still had to hike for quite some time through the ridge leading from Fannborg to Snaekollur. There was still a lot of snow on this part of the trail, so we had to be careful, and hiking poles came really handy here. We also had crampons in our backpacks but didn’t need them because the snow was soft, and the problem wasn’t the grip on the snow but the fear of falling deep into the snow. And, obviously, you don’t know what’s below the snow.

Firstly, we had to descend a bit from Fannborg, only to ascend again a few hundred meters later. The trail was not evident from a distance and sometimes not even clear a few meters ahead.

We reached the point where we had no other option than just to go through the snowfield and slightly climb over the big rock. During this part, we passed some pretty exposed spots of the trail, with steep falls on both sides. Luckily, the snow was firm enough to hold us, which we’d tried to test before stepping on it.

Finally, the last and the steepest climb took us to our final destination – the peak of Snækollur. It was hard but totally worth it! We felt like having climbed the Icelandic version of Mt. Everest.

Snækollur, the highest peak of the entire Kerlingarfjöll, obviously offers the best views out there over the Kerlingarfjöll area. We were lucky with good visibility and pleasant weather. Although cloudy, the clouds were high enough not to block our views and small enough not to produce rain. On a nice day, views from Snækollur could easily qualify as a natural wonder.

Descent – partially marked trail

If it wasn’t so cold out there, we would have stayed and admired the views for at least an hour. However, the reality was a bit harsher, with around 5°C (41°F) and occasional wind, up at Snaekollur. This meant that, by just sitting or standing, we started to feel pretty cold, and thus, we were pretty motivated to move again.

We had to return via the same steep and exposed parts, partially covered with snow, to reach Fannborg again (see section Snækollur ridge). Then we continued further down, now via the yellow-marked trail leading to the north-east. We got back to the little crossroads of our unmarked trail, which we used for the climb up and of a (supposedly) marked path with footsteps leading eastwards (to the right).

The trail led diagonally downwards on the slope of Fannborg, with billions of broken stones forming the ground. Still no marks, just footsteps. Eventually, we reached the point where there were only snowfields to continue through. One gigantic, which didn’t look very safe, and one smaller, with what looked like some old footsteps. We opted for the smaller snowfield with (hopefully) footsteps.

My cousin checked the snowfield, and it seemed to be pretty firm. Hence, we began our snowfield descent. Luckily, everything went alright. After crossing the biggest snowfield of our trip, we finally saw a stick in the ground. Is this supposed to be the mark or just the random stick? Yes, it turned out to be a mark, because it was followed by another yellow bar soon.

Finally – a first real trail mark after 4 hours of hiking. This made the descent much more straightforward, and no other obstacles were on the trail. Soon we arrived at the Fannborg car park and headed back to the Hveradalir car park, which is about 10 minutes of walking on F347 away.

To sum up, the north-eastern (supposedly) marked trail to Fannborg is definitely easier in many aspects:

1. The bottom part of this trail is marked, making orientation easier.
2. Even after marks end, there should be trodden footsteps to follow in summer.
3. This trail is much shorter. The unmarked trail via Hveradalir was more adventurous, but I instead recommend you take the partially marked trail from the separate Fannborg car park.

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