The Queen of Volcanoes - Mt. Herðubreið

This one is not on our itinerary. The 1682m Mt. Herðubreið remained unclimbed until 1908 and is still a tricky proposition at best. It is very remotely situated in the middle of the Ódáðahraun lava desert so requires a multi-day trip just to get to its base. It is a table mountain with almost vertical sides as a result of erupting underneath an ice cap, but then it broke through the ice cap and formed a regular looking pyramidal volcano on the top. This year there is an unseasonable amount of snow on everything with any height, so the small ice field on Mt. Herðubreið extends to cover the whole top. But it looks absolutely splendid - so hence the blip.