Waterfalls on the Skógá River

The waterfalls on the Skógá River are so numerous that it was overwhelming to me. Just to give you an idea of how waterfall saturated I was on this one hike alone, I saw about 26 waterfalls, 23 of them were on the river itself, and this is not counting

And of the 26 waterfalls I counted, at least three had to have been over 30m tall plus many more that were close to that size. Plus, there were several varieties of waterfalls to be sampled like the wide river types as well as the tall plunging ones. To my knowledge, none of these waterfalls were officially named (not counting Skógafoss at the very bottom).

So add it up, and I'd argue if you were looking for waterfall saturation, this trail would certainly do the trick. It took me about 8 hours to do the out-and-back hike (starting and ending at Skogafoss and not counting the additional 25 minutes each way I was walking to and from the Hotel Edda nearby). I believe it was 8km each way.

It seems more typical that hardier hikers with more time on their hands would combine this trail with some of the backcountry beyond the last waterfall as a multi-day backpack. A particularly notable example of such a hike in the area involved one between Skógar and Þórsmörk with a mountain hut at Fimmvörðuháls. Others extend this hike all the way to Landmannalaugur.

Below, I've displayed photographs of the noteable waterfalls from my day hike in the order you'd see them from the top down. Sorry about most of the photos not having captions. That was because I lost track of which one was which. In any case, see if this page alone might induce waterfall fatigue :)

Directions: Although it's possible to hike from north to south, I did this hike going from south to north. Therefore, the trailhead is the same as that of Skógafoss. See that page for driving directions.

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Big waterfall near the 8km point

Foss 25 - this one has a small peek-a-boo arch above the falls

























This is another one of the giant waterfalls













This one is just upstream from Skógafoss

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TRIP REPORTS

• July 7, 2007

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NEARBY WATERFALLS

• Skógáfoss
• Kvernufoss

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