The Surprisingly Secret Walk Behind One Of Iceland's Most Popular Waterfalls

There’s a secret behind one of the most photographed and accessible waterfalls in Iceland, a secret that made the afternoon I visited it the most pleasant of my trip there, a secret that I’m going to tell you.  It left me befuddled and open-mouthed and delighted with the surprises that this beautiful island can deliver.  You should know this secret and that’s why you should keep reading.

We must start by setting the scene.  Iceland, let’s be clear, is a destination not because of its architecture or romantic city strolls along the harbor or its rap scene.  I’ve written before about how the capital Reykjavik, the only real city in the country, is a nice enough place but not all that.  It’s not the next Prague.  The thing to do in Iceland is rent a car (little choice here) and go see the amazingly dramatic landscape.  Hyperbole is called for here, even a few usually carefully-controlled clichés.  Iceland is jaw-droppingly beautiful, utterly worth it for the geography even though it’s one of the most expensive countries on the planet.  I would return tomorrow just to do more photography, though I would save up some money first.

 

Iceland’s geography comes from being on a tectonic plate fault line, making it an island of volcanoes and their aftermath, and this dramatic, jagged landscape leads to lots of waterfalls.  Iceland has one main road that circles the country around the coastal areas, known smartly as Route 1 and as the ring road.  Those two previous and unrelated sentences converge at an area around the south-central coast area, perhaps a two or three-hour drive from Reykjavik, where the large Skógafoss waterfall sits right off the ring road, so close that even if no one told you about it, you would see it from the road and bellow, “Blimey, what’s that monster?” and decide to check it out.

“Foss” means waterfall in Icelandic.  Skógafoss is the waterfall near the minuscule town of Skógar (population 30), made up of a few restaurants and hotels who heavily advertise, and a folk museum known as the best in the country.  (I visited it later.  Eh.)  You can park right in front of the waterfall.

 

This is Skógafoss, the massive waterfall you and everyone else will see first.

 

Skógafoss is 62 meters high and 25 meters wide, a sheer drop plunging over a lava cliff.  As you approach it, the walls make a small canyon, the mist starts, and the full force of the drop can be felt.  You probably won’t be alone here, as it’s popular and convenient stop for tour buses.

Nice enough, but we come now to the secret — this is not the only waterfall on this river that you can see.  There are bunches of them, and heading upriver to see them makes for perhaps the best hike I’ve ever done.  Almost every visitor just comes to the first waterfall, Skógafoss, and gawks and then leaves.  Stairs on the right side of the waterfall lead to a viewing platform at the top, but not everyone climbs them, and shockingly few take the hike.  It’s not signposted in any way, and there’s no indication of any more attractions than this one waterfall.  You need to be specifically told to head upriver, as I was, and that’s why I’m passing this on.  Please do this.  It will make you happy.

At the top of Skógafoss, beyond the small viewing platform, is a fence of the type you see all over Iceland, designed for sheep.  It has an interesting way over it, designed just for humans.  A V-shaped wooden construction, like a stepstool, sits over the top of the fence, so you humans can very carefully step over.  Then the trail starts.  The path is not obvious at first, but you will see the worn trail and the light blue pole markers, and of course you’re following the river bank on its right side, so you won’t get lost unless you leave the river.

 

The trail is called Fimmvörðuháls, and no it’s not really a secret but what is too rarely mentioned is that while walking upriver, every ten minutes or so you will come upon another spectacular waterfall.  The brilliant part is that the falls just keep coming.  They aren’t small.  They aren’t massive drops like Skógafoss, but they’re large, as is the whole scale of the river and this river valley, and they’re so very much worth seeing.  The setting is perfect.  There’s a small mountain at the beginning, on the opposite bank, and snow-covered mountains in the background.  The land is lush and green.  There are no real trees in Iceland, so there’s nothing covering the land, and nothing to block your view.  You just keep walking to the next waterfall, and people don’t know how easy and good this hike is.

 

In addition to the river waterfalls, there are small steams, sometimes tiny, draining into the river valley, side waterfalls adding to the bulk.  Some are sizable.  Some slide down the river bank, while some dramatically drop in.  You quickly become used to the idea of there always being another waterfall ahead; it is inconceivable they would run out.  You see the mist rising from the riverbank ahead of you before you see the next one, and then when you do catch sight of it, you have a while walking to enjoy it, to get some good views and some photos.  You’d think the river would eventually rise to your level but no, it doesn’t.

The waterfalls are all pretty, all photogenic.  Some have one drop, some a serious of rapids, but all with at least one serious free drop.  You spend ten minutes at each one, looking from every angle, taking a dozen photos. The land is green but not grassy green—it looks more like it’s covered with a thick moss.  There are boulders everywhere, with lots in the riverbed.

 

The trail is marked with the posts and, mostly, along the ground.  It’s set back from the edge, so that you are constantly darting forward towards the river, judging the ground as you do so, to see more of the water.  You can see forever, but not along the very windy river.  Sometimes the ground is very wet, the mossy-grass soaked, so you have to judge the terrain and perhaps seek dry ground.  Few others were on the trail when I went, and I could see anyone coming a long way off.  Only a few seemed to be serious hikers, people I suspected might be heading to father destinations.  I never walked with anyone–there was plenty of space to keep between us.

 

It’s an easy walk, just a bit slippery at times.  You never need to clamor over things, but a few spots have slopes that demand attention.  At one incline, I could discern slide marks where people had dug in their steps but their foot kept going.

When doing anything outdoors in Iceland (and nearly everything you should do in Iceland is outdoors), be prepared for all types of weather.  Particularly in the south of the island (I was told), the weather is variable throughout the day.  It will be sunny, then rain.  It will stop.  It will drizzle again.  It will mist.  It changes every half hour, cycling through everything, all day every day.  Don’t think that a rainy day in Iceland will stay rainy, or that a sunny day will stay sunny.  It rarely gets much above 10C (50F) any time of year.  On this walk, I was constantly zippering and unzipping my jacket, throwing my hood on and then back.  I needed to keep the camera dry, which wasn’t all that hard, and needed to give up on keeping myself dry.

 

One problem — the sky was awful for photos.  This would be a recurring problem in my time there.  That changing weather might give you a dramatic background, but too often it simply leads to a grey muddle.  Having a good sky for landscape photos is crucial, as a washed-out sky can make the entire scene bland.  I would so rarely get a good sky during my time there, and this day especially was gray.  I positioned most of the photos to not have much sky in them; there was no point.

For photographers setting up tripods, watch the ground carefully.  It’s spongey.  You’ll be moving around much, so make sure you can set up and break down easily.  This is an out-and-back hike, not a point-to-point, so remember that when you return along this trail, the weather (and thus the light and the sky) can be different at every waterfall.  You can have crappy light at one waterfall on the way out and better light on the way back.  A neutral density filter may help, perhaps even a graduated one, depending on how soft you like your water.

The trail ended for me after about two hours, when I saw a monster waterfall in the distance.  It was the first one that started above my head level and dropped below me, and the first one that had a long, straight drop similar to Skógafoss at the beginning.  It was huge.  The trail at this point turned weird.  The flat grasslands had ended, and we’re now getting into the mountains.  The trail came to the edge of the river valley, where before it was a bit inland, and it turned narrow.  I had to scramble up rocks and carefully step my way down.  The monster waterfall roared, and I fished the tripod out to take some shots.

 

This waterfall is so grand it should have a name, and I’m not sure it does, so I will name it Tomfoss.

 

The trail went down and then went way up, up a razorback cliff, more than a 45-degree incline.  Wow.

This is it for me.  This is pure lawsuit material.  I already felt the trail was becoming a bit unsafe, and this part clinched it.  I looked up the face of this cliff.  It’s only about eight meters up, but it looks horrible.  I have a camera around my neck and a backpack.  Time to bail.  A shame, as I only have a partial view of the monster Tomfoss waterfall and I’d love to see more.

 

I’m walking back only a few meters when I notice steps kicked into another part of the cliff, going up.  This is earth instead of rock, and it’s a gentler slope, perhaps 45 degrees.  Someone had climbed this before me, kicking steps.  I could do this.  I picked my way very carefully up the steps, the footfalls, balancing.  When I reached the top it was like a razorback.  I would have to get over that somehow, and then down the other side which looked like a 60-degree incline, horrible.  After going down on the backside ten meters or so, there’s another incline right after.  The trail is supposed to have a human-made bridge somewhere over the river, and then it goes on.  I couldn’t see it or see what was after this hump.  I’m already clinging to a point–there’s no way I’m going further.  Game over.

 

I picked my way down the earthen footsteps, balancing on each one, realizing what would happen if I lost control.  I got back on the path, and picked my way over a sort of barrier rock I had to cross earlier.  After this, we’re getting flatter and safer.  I was aghast at the trail.  I’m too dramatic, yes, but this was crazy.

Supposedly the trail goes on and people do too, about a seven-hour total hike, to an area called Þórsmörk, a rough interior area (private vehicles can’t get there) that sounds fantastic.  You can keep going, to another area, Landmannalaugaur, if you have a week to spare.  I’ve seen photos of this, so I know it can be done.  I may have just taken a side trail to the last Tomfoss waterfall by mistake, missing the main trail that went on safely, I don’t know.  But I wasn’t disappointed; this was a good turn-around point.  In a couple of hours, I had seen perhaps a dozen brilliant waterfalls, and a different part of Iceland.

 

 

Walking back took an hour.  I was still stopping for photos, in awe of this place.  When I got back to the trailhead, the platform above Skógafoss, I was reluctant to leave.  I thought I would take some more shots of Skógafoss, but why bother?  The other stuff was better.  I felt sorry for everyone who came to see Skógafoss and would never realize the treasures that lay just beyond.

But now you know.

 

Fimmvörðuháls:  The waterfall trail starts at the top of Skógafoss, the waterfall just outside the tiny town of Skógar.  This hike could be done on a day trip from Reykjavik (using a rental car), and there are certainly other attractions, including more waterfalls, en route to Skógar, but it’s best to stay in this southern area a few days.  The town of Vik makes a convenient base, and there are many things to see in the area.

Don’t attempt this walk without sunlight.  Bring with you: waterproofs and warm stuff, shoes that can get muddy, and your best camera.

Bonus: the restaurant in the Hotel Skógar, right in front of that first waterfall, Skógafoss, is surprisingly good, but not cheap.

If you spend any time in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, check out my thoughts on it here.