Day 4 started off so sunny and beautiful! We had looked at vedur.is to check the weather the night before and we thought it showed we would be in purple wind (very strong wind!) overnight and this morning, but woke up to no wind at all. Prior to the trip everyone suggested using Vedur to check the wind, but we found it wasn't very good or easy to figure out exactly where we were and if the wind would be too strong for us to drive (we often couldn't tell if we would be in the windy area or just outside of it). We started checking https://vegasja.vegagerdin.is/ every time before we drove as that was much easier to use, much easier to find exactly where we were and more accurate for us.
First up for the day was a walk up to Svartifoss from the campsite
Another waterfall on the way up
A Rock Ptarmigan on the rocks!
There were lots of spots of ice on the trail which was fun
Svartifoss! So much columnar basalt!
Instead of just heading back the way we came we continued on up to the viewpoint at
Sjónarsker
You could see the glaciers
And the mountains from the viewpoint
Then looped around to Sel where there were some grass-roofed houses
You could see forever and there was so much nothing! That is one of the things I loved - how you could really be in the middle of nowhere. Road 1 is out there somewhere, but to see the cars you had to look for a dot that moved.
It was such a beautiful day! And so many birds flying around while we wandered
The trail eventually loops back to the campground
Next up was a quick drive to Fjallsárlón - the smaller glacier lagoon
The glacier itself was way cooler than the other lagoon's glacier, but the lagoon itself was not as cool. At least not on the day we were there. It might be because it was so sunny the colors were not as amazing, but we still enjoyed it
While eating lunch at the lagoon I was looking to see what was next on the list - Múlagljúfur Canyon - and how to get there. We had driven past where it should be twice by this point, but I didn't see any signs or anything so was unsure where it was located
I found a blog post about it that said you just drive down an unmarked gravel road till you get to a parking spot and then hike up. They did note that there is a stream to cross so if there is water in the stream and you don't have a 4x4 you shouldn't go through. We decided to go check it out and see if we could drive down the road and there was no water in the stream! Plus while we were driving down there a giant tour bus was driving towards us and I thought if they can do this road we can too! I really have no idea why it went down there or how it turned around as there was not much room on the road/at the parking spot to turn around...
The hike up was not too difficult and you could see the glacier lagoon we just left! It really is just a few minutes down the road from there
These photos really do not do it justice! It was beautiful and one of my favorite stops on the trip! This is a definitely do if you have time!!
This was also the first time I realized how hot the sun is if there is no wind! Hiking up there was very little wind, none by the time we got to the viewpoint and it was so hot I was in a t-shirt even though it was only 10C outside! Most places that is definitely way too cold for a t-shirt even if it is sunny, but in Iceland the sun is so much warmer! I did not expect that. Really I didn't think we would ever be in a t-shirt there as I thought it wouldn't get warm enough!
The water color of the pool at the bottom of the waterfall was again an incredible color!
Eventually the wind picked up and it started to get chilly so we headed back down.
When we left a cloud started forming where the sun was and it formed so quickly it was crazy! By the time we got back to the car it looked so stormy where we were and back towards camp!
Because we were right there and I loved it so much the day before we decided to drive back to Jökulsárlón and look at the icebergs!
First though we spied on Diamond Beach and it was so much cooler than the day before! It was odd as we stopped at the west parking for it, since that was where the ice was the day prior, but there was no ice there! It was all on the east beach so we drove over there instead.
So much more ice and bigger pieces than 24 hours prior! I joined an Iceland travel group before we left and someone asked for favorite places and most overrated places and in the replies someone said well most places really depend on when you are there. What the weather is like, what mood you are in, etc and that is so true! The day before I was meh on this beach and the ice on it, but today it was so much fun! We spent way more time than I expected wandering the beach and looking at the ice, watching it get pushed around by the waves and watching the new big pieces come out of the outlet flow from the lagoon. Really it was so much fun, but if we had only come here once it would have been one of my most overrated places. It really just depends on what it is like at the moment you are there!
And of course we had to spy on the lagoon and watch all the icebergs float on by. The tide was coming in so some of them got caught by that and were headed into the lagoon, some of them got caught in an area where they just spun around in a circle as the water was going in both directions, and a lot were getting caught on one spot in the outlet and breaking into smaller pieces. I loved sitting here watching the ice and I could have come back here again and again!
But eventually we had to head back to camp - we camped at Skaftafell again which was really nice. All in all we walked 17.8km
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