Sep 6 – Skafafell and Pakgil

Another grey almost rainy morning that again turned bright and sunny.

Our path.

The campground filled up a lot last night.

From the campground we had two choices of short hikes that suited our mood this morning. We could go to Svartifoss or Skaftafell. We chose the glacier over the waterfall.

It is an easy around 2 km one-way mostly flat trail out to the toe of the glacier.

You can see the hint of white off in the distance.

There were a few small waterfalls to check out on the way.

 

 

From this viewpoint you could go down to he lagoon or go to the toe.

We saw some people climbing around the moraine at the glacier so off we went.

The trail was a bit rough and rocky.

Made it.

The runoff from the glacier flowed through the ice cave.

The photosphere.

We climbed up on the moraine for a better look around.

The photosphere.

We thought that his bit of the glacier looked like a dog face with floppy ears.

As we started back it started to get foggy with some drizzly rain.

Back on the highway we were soon back in mostly sunny skies.

We made a quick stop to check out the roadside Foss a Sidur.

Next was Stjornarfoss.

Next was Fjardarargljufur Canyon. You used to be able to walk along the bottom of the canyon or along a rough trail around the top edge. Then Justin Bieber made a video and it became so popular that no walking on the bottom is allowed and there there is a wide trail along the top that only takes you to two viewpoints.

You can pay to park at the bottom and climb up.

Or you can drive up a rough dirt road and park for free near the top.

We were also near the second and best viewpoint with the waterfall at the end of the canyon.

And the view back down.

You can’t see much from the trail.

The first viewpoint wasn’t that great either.

You can still see some of the path that you are not allowed to use, which is probably a good thing.

Back on the highway with glaciers poking out everywhere.

And the cliff detached from the rest of the shoreline mountains.

The road into our next campground at Pakgil was very interesting. It’s not 4x4 only but is pretty close.

We didn’t realize how high we had climbed.

A photosphere.

The final drive in was beside a river bed.

The campsite is at the end of a a canyon.

Later I climbed partway up one of the trails that goes steeply up the canyon wall and the loops down somewhere else.

 

 

A photosphere.

The side canyon you can see in the picture above lead to a small waterfall.

 

It looks like they have a small hydro generating station dug in the hillside.

So many crazy rock formations to look at.

 

This panorama that I took to get the hill top in kind of stretched Jennie.

 

Looking back down at the campground.

Another interesting thing was this cave near the campground entrance.

Complete with table, BBQ, stove and lots of tea lights.

A pretty great campground.