Day 2 - Snӕfellsjӧkull National Park (August 6)

Snӕfellsjӧkull from Arnarstapi

On Thursday morning we left Reykjavik and drove north and west to Snӕfellsnes Peninsula and Snӕfellsjӧkull National Park (Snowy Mountain and Snowy Mountain Glacier). Given our trouble with speaking Icelandic, we took to calling it Snuffleuffagus Park (for those of you who remember Big Bird’s one time imaginary friend).

Snӕfellllsnes is a little off the beaten path. Most short-time visitors to Iceland usually travel south along the Golden Circle route (Hwy 1) and go to popular spots like Thingvellir National Park and the Blue Lagoon, which is about a ½ hour from Reykjavik. However, for those of you who remember our New Zealand blog, I am a camping and hiking snob—the fewer the people the better, so a little off

the beaten path appealed to me/us. Also, a graduate student in the Biology Department at UNB Saint John who is from Iceland, Gudjon, recommended that we spend some time in Snӕfellsjӧkull National Park. He told us 1) that it is spectacular, and 2) other parts of Iceland are getting overrun with tourists. (A guide in the park told us that in 2014 there were 1 million visitors to Iceland and that in 2015, the number is expected to be close to 1.4 million.)

Snӕfellsnes is an active volcano hiding beneath the glacier (jӧkull), although it last erupted roughly 2,000 years ago, and was the setting for Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. The park contains a series of eroded cinder cones/volcanic craters and expansive lava fields that run down from the glacier to the coast. Between the lava fields are flatter, more fertile areas, and the area where the park sits was home to a number of farms from around 1000 A.D. to the 1950’s. The west coast of Iceland has also long been one of the country’s richest fishing grounds, so a number of fishing harbours, ancient and modern, can be found all around the Snӕfellsnes Peninsula.

View west to the coast from Hreggnasi

On our first day in the park we went on a guided 2 hour hike up and down Mt. Hreggnasi. Doing this gave us an excellent view of the volcanic landscape of the park. 

After this we drove about 45 minutes to our cozy and out-of-the way cabin. After a gourmet dinner of barbequed sausages (we have not eaten much, if any, authentic Icelandic food on this trip), we went swimming in nearby Stykkisholmur, about 5 minutes from our cabin. Like the pools in Reykjavik, it is heated geothermally. We then returned to our cabin for a well-deserved good night's sleep.