Skaftafell National Park

We were scheduled to visit Skaftafell yesterday but had ended up at the ice cave and so decided we'd do it today and not miss out. We arrived at the visitor centre to discover it's no longer free to park which was a bit of a nuisance, though they had completely redone the visitor centre and cafe so that has to be paid for somehow. We immediately organised our gear and headed down the trail for about 1.25 miles to the end/nose/stub, or whatever, of the Skaftafell glacier tongue which nestles below Iceland's highest mountain. As we approached along the footpath we were presented with a stunning view of the glacier with its rich blue colours and a frozen lake containing a scattering of blue icebergs.

As we arrived you can see there were clear skies and sunshine but during our time there it became cloudy and the light changed. This simply resulted in different colours in the ice making it appear even more blue than it was in the sunshine. The temperature dropped tremendously though and we both suffered from extremely cold fingers. It was definitely worth the visit and hopefully we have photographs to prove it. We were able to get quite close to the glacier though perhaps not as close as it felt. We were midgets against its size and to get right up to it meant walking on the frozen lake ... a risk not really worth taking though one person had a go, just like the people at Fjallsarlon. Are we chickens or wise?Read more