About Baejarfoss
Baejarfoss (more accurately Bæjarfoss; pronounced “BYE-yar-foss”; meaning “Town Falls”) was situated right behind the charming town of Ólafsvík as the waterfall’s name would suggest.
Ólafsvík was a small town of about 1000 inhabitants that is better known as a fishing town as well as its quirky church, but we’ve used it as a base to explore the Snæfellsnes Peninsula on both of our visits (in June 2007 and August 2021).
I viewed the Bæjarfoss Waterfall as a convenient one because all we had to do to get close to it was to go on a short 700m walk or so right from the center of town.
The way we did this walk was to essentially head up one of two streets straddling the Fossá Stream towards the bridge on the Engihlið Road by the church.
From there, we then followed a use-trail on the right (west) side of the bridge and stream and went up to the waterfall’s base (or at least as close as we could get).
On our first visit, the trail to get closer to the falls wasn’t all that obvious to us, and it felt like more of a scramble.
However, on our second visit 14 years later, it appeared that the walkway was both wide and more obvious to follow.
That said, I couldn’t help but notice some avalanche mitigation infrastructure and water channels on the Fossá.
It was eerily reminiscent of the post-landslide scene we saw back at Buðarárfoss in Seyðisfjörður though it wasn’t clear to me when or why these changes took place at Ólafsvík since our first visit here.
That said, according to a sign by the church, the Icelandic government found that Ólafsvík needed avalanche mitigation measures to be taken, and perhaps we must have seen the results of such measures.
So perhaps Ólafsvík was spared the major landslide event in Seyðisfjörður as a result of the unprecedented saturation rain event in December 2020.
Because of the modest climbing that we did to get up to Bæjarfoss, we got to enjoy the view back towards Breiðarfjörður and the Atlantic Ocean on the return hike, especially under clear skies like it was on our June 2007 visit.
Authorities
Baejarfoss (Bæjarfoss) resides in the West Region in Ólafsvík, Iceland. It is administered by the municipality of Snæfellsbær. For information or inquiries about the general area as well as current conditions, you may want to try visiting their website.
From Ólafsvík, I believe we walked uphill along Kirkjutun St.
Since the falls was always visible behind town, it was essentially our compass, so to speak.
Geographically speaking, Ólafsvík was 9km (less than 10 minutes drive) east of Hellissandur, 64km (about an hour drive) west of the ferry town of Stykkishólmur, 118km (90 minutes drive) northwest of Borgarnes, and 187km (2.5 hours drive) north of Reykjavik.
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Downstream to upstream sweep starting with Olafsvik and the unusual church before panning to the falls
Upstream to downstream sweep from the bridge starting with Baejarfoss in the misty drizzle before going across the street for one more look at the falls in context
Fixated on the falls as seen in June 2007
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