The Laugavegur walk - Landmannalaugar to Þórsmörk


Pictures at at the bottom...

The Laugarvegur walk is a very popular walking track from Landmannalaugar, in the interior, to Þórsmörk, near the south coast. It's about 50km, with huts situated to do it four easy days, though of course, you can camp pretty much anywhere, and do it longer or shorter. To wit, we were passed at midmorning on our third day by a pair that had started that morning, and were planning on catching a 3:30pm bus from the end.

My mum had planned to do this walk by herself, but I wanted to do it as well, and hadn't taken any holiday time from my new job yet, so I jumped along on her plans. She changed some of her hut reservations, but that was about it.

The huts are reasonably expensive, at 1800 isk per person per night, (about $AU36) and the bus to the start and finish ran another 7000 isk per person, so it's not a particularly cheap walk, but it is iceland, and it is a very very nice walk.

Much has been written about this walk on other parts of the internet, and they are all pretty reliable. I've got a big backlog of pictures to get through again, so I'm just going to mention my personal notes.

The fields of obsidian around Hrafntinnusker is quite special. I've seen bigger, more pure chunks of obsidian before, at Glass Mountain in northern california, but the shear expanse of it here, literally scattered across the entire landscape as far as you can see is really neat.

The icecaves, on the western flank of Hrafntinnusker are also really really neat. I'd never seen these before, and they are almost indescribable. They can be formed by various processes, the one here is formed by geothermal activity beneath the snowfield. It's BIG, mum and I walked in about 50m, but then it turned a corner and got dark, and we'd not brought headlights. (It's the middle of summer in iceland, you don't need a headlight for anything) Lovely patterns in the ice, and all the different colours as well.

The strange dirt cones lying on the ice were interesting. We saw these twice, in the snowfields above the ice caves, and also on the approach to the hrafntinnusker hut. It looks like a whole array of mini cinder cones, only they are sitting on a field of ice. Closer inspection reveals that they are actually cones/ridges of ice, with a thin layer of dirt/tephra lying on top. Very interesting, and I have no plausible theory for their creation. It's like you took a heavily suncupped snowfield, and then dumped a thin layer of black dirt across it evenly.

Day two is mostly walking across the highcountry, with all sorts of different colours in every direction, before finally dropping down into a luxurious green valley, with smaller mountain ridges, a lake, and glaciers lining the horizon. It's pretty cool. Alftavatn is a nice lake to swim in too. (though it's a bit shallow)

Day three isn't really one to write home about, though it is different yet again. It starts off pleasantly enough walking through some green meadows, but you soon end up crossing a lava field, and then walking along a dirt road, black sand, road again, and finally spending the rest of the day walking on black sand. At least it's flat. To be fair, there's an interesting bridge to cross, and a quite nice waterfall to break up the day, but the black sand really does go on and on a bit too long.

Day four is down down again, with the glaciers of Mýrdalsjökull growing bigger overhead. Then it's down into the Þórsmörk valley, which is famous for having trees (how very unicelandic) It has some very good walking. The vegetation reminded me of the sort of california scrub you got around pinnacles area, short twisted trees, and flowering undergrowth. Except there was a massive icecap in the background of everything :)

A short swim in the hut tub at the bus stop, and then just a long hot bus trip back to reykjavik, and work the next morning.

Met a lovely italian group, father and daughter, who we shared every hut with. They continued on over to Skógar with mum, making the full six day walk. Also a nice Australian couple, currently living in the UK. Both of these groups show up fairly often in the photos.


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Karl and Ruth starting Laugarvegurinn

Karl and Ruth starting Laugarvegurinn

Landmannalaugar camping ground

Landmannalaugar camping ground

Colourful hills and a meadow near Landmannalaugar

Colourful hills and a meadow near Landmannalaugar

Mum hiking up from the edge of the lavafield

Mum hiking up from the edge of the lavafield

People walking in the lavafield near Landmannalaugar

People walking in the lavafield near Landmannalaugar

Pretty colours

Pretty colours