The Skogar Trail - looking back to Magni

The last day of the trek. The weather was perfect – beautifully sunny – we had a view from our tent door of mountains framed by backlit grass studded with raindrops. We didn’t have to ford the river on foot, but it took 4 trips in the Jeep to get us all across to the start, so it was about 10am before we actually started to walk.

The way begins on a narrow winding path through trees at first, sometimes with some exposure, but nothing frightening. The views back the way we had come were tremendous, and a wall of mountains loomed in front of us. The ascent was sometimes very steep, but there were a few sections of plateau as well. As we got higher, we could see the Eyjafjallajokull glacier to our right, and we could see a section of new black lava which had oozed over a cliff. After a very steep section with one of those chains which are supposed to help, but are actually no use at all when going up, there was a final steep climb, and then we came around a corner and saw…… …… new land.

We were looking at a new lava flow from the 2010 eruption (which actually started on the route of this trek. In addition to the lava, there are 2 new volcanic cones, called Modi and Magni, which are black and red. The route now goes across the lava flows, right next to the crater where the eruption began, and then you can climb, easily, up Magni. It was still steaming, because it’s still hot. When you sit down, to eat lunch, as we did (well, it would be rude NOT to stop there for a while) our backsides were kept pleasantly warm. I was in mountain heaven. I’m fascinated by volcanoes, and here I was, eating my lunch on a 3 year old volcano. It was truly amazing.

This was the highest part of the walk, and the views were fabulous, but unfortunately the good weather was losing its battle with Icelandic rain showers, so the visibility gradually faded.

After lunch we walked for what seemed like a long time across a landscape of new lava, snowfields, ash on top of snowfields…. This blip shows you what it was like – it is looking back to Magni, on the left of the picture, and you can see some people standing where we had lunch.

The descent is long, but not as steep as the ascent. We crossed a stream (inevitably in a gorge), on a bridge where the steps down were missing – which means that it takes a long time to cross as we all had to climb down the bridge supports one by one. After this crossing the walk follows the path of the stream/river, and every few hundred metres there is another beautiful waterfall. The final waterfall is Gullfoss, one of the largest in Iceland. We reached there at about 8pm, so after about 10 hours walking.

We then had dinner in a local restaurant and were driven back to Reykjavik (arriving after 1am).

The Skogar Trail is a fantastic, but long day walk. You could stay in one of the 2 huts up at the top and take your time (but the huts are tiny, and this is a busy trail). I was lucky enough to walk some of the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand last year, (it was partially closed due to an eruption a few weeks before) which claims the title of “best day walk in the world”. I think the Skogar Trail is better. It’s longer, more demanding, has more variety of scenery, and is less tamed than the Tongariro Crossing.

The 5 days of trekking exceeded all expectations. We’d reached the sea, so couldn’t go any further, but I wasn’t really ready to finish…