Zooming in on Hvannadalshnúkur (2110m)

rgg - Jun 23, 2017 10:50 am - Hasn't voted

Since we were hoping to spend a few days exploring part of the vast Vatnajökull glacier, and camping somewhere high up on the glacier, we closely followed the weather forecast right from the start of our two week trip. It ranged from poor to outright dangerous, so we didn't even go to the area for more than a week. A few days into our second week, by the time I seriously thought we would run out of time, the forecast for the area started to get decidedly better, and with just enough days left for a decent visit before we had to fly home, we drove to Skaftafell, where we camped and gathered as much information as we could about the conditions up on the glacier and the possibilities of multi-day trips.

This photo is from the morning of our second of three days exploring the Vatnajökull glacier. Yesterday it was drizzling and visibility wasn't all that great. This was the first day we got to see Hvannadalshnúkur, and at the time I didn't even know what I was looking at. During the day, some small clouds high up came and went, but there were no visibility problems whatsoever, and nothing like a cloud carpet. Next morning the very top of Hvannadalshnúkur had a persistent thin cloud so we had no summit views, but apart from that the views were outstanding again the whole day.

I'm counting on Jan to write a trip report about it. In due course I may decide to post a route page for our Svínafellsjökull ascent of Hvannadalshnúkur. Compared to the normal (Sandfell) route it's a completely different world.

We saw lots of waterfalls during our visit - Gullfoss being the most impressive - but didn't even get close to Dettifoss. We briefly entertained the idea of driving the whole ring road and seeing the sights along it, but our main goal was to explore the mountains. Two weeks was just too short to do both, so Dettifoss has to wait.