About Flogufoss
Flogufoss (Flögufoss) seemed to me like an obscure and eccentric hidden waterfall due to a natural bridge spanning it while backed by the curiously crown-shaped Smátindar Peaks.
Although the waterfall is situated in the fairly well-traveled Breiðdalur Valley in the East of Iceland, we actually missed this falls on our first visit in 2007.
I thought of this route as well-traveled (though it seemed very quiet both times we did it in 2007 and 2021), because the GPS routing tended to favor it over the slightly longer coastal Route 1 (Ring Road) in the Eastfjords between Egilsstaðir and Breiðdalsvík.
Nevertheless, by us missing this waterfall on that first visit, it kind of goes to show you how well-hidden this waterfall was.
In fact, it was only after finding this waterfall in August 2021 did we realize that there was a hill essentially blocking its view while driving the Skriðdalsvegur and Breiðdalsvegur Roads through the valley.
Anyways, of the four waterfalls that we’ve stopped for while doing the long drive through the mostly-quiet Eastfjords, I found this one to be the most unusual thanks to the aforementioned features it had going for it.
Accessing Flögufoss
It wasn’t exactly straightforward for us to find Flögufoss because there wasn’t a designated trailhead or car park for it as of our visit in August 2021 (though there was a sign at the turnoff leaving the main road through the valley).
Heck, even the trail itself didn’t seem to have any real maintenance other than it was used by other people and we pretty much followed wherever the resulting trails went.
Anyways, the key for us was to find the signed turnoff for the 4wd road leading to “Flaga” (see directions below).
From there, instead of risking damage to our rental vehicle and its tires (even though it had high clearance and 4wd), we opted to park in a space by the sign before walking the rest of the way.
Thus, we walked the rough 4wd path directly south for nearly 500m to a rocky clearing near the wash containing the Flöguá Stream.
Beyond this clearing, we then continued following a narrower trail-of-use as it skirted alongside the bouldery wash of Flöguá for about the next 300m.
Then, we crossed the bouldery wash as well as the stream, which wasn’t difficult since most of the water from the low flowing stream did not submerge any of the rocks we could hop across.
Once we emerged on the other side of the wash, we continued following the trail-of-use up the increasingly steepening hill as we started to get a good at both Flögufoss and the Smátindar behind it.
While the views towards the waterfall and its peaks were already attractive, we still had to get closer to it in order to better appreciate the natural bridge.
It wasn’t until I reached the end of one of the use-trails that got me to the banks of the wash was I able to look up through the natural bridge (though not close enough to look through it with the sky behind it).
Even though my Mom and I contended with fog and looking against the afternoon sun during our August 2021 visit, we did manage to take some satisfactory pictures as you can see on this page.
After having our fill of Flögufoss, we then returned the way we came.
Overall, we spent about an hour away from the car (perhaps nearly half of it was spent waiting for the fog to clear up a bit) covering a round-trip distance of about 2.4km.
Authorities
Flogufoss (Flögufoss) resides in the East Region near Breiðdalsvík, Iceland. It is administered by the municipality of Fjarðabyggð. For information or inquiries about the general area as well as current conditions, you may want to try visiting their website.
The nearest town of any significant size to Flogufoss (Flögufoss) is the small coastal town of Breiðdalsvík so I’ll describe the driving directions from there.
Starting from Breiðdalsvík, we’d drive about 1km back onto the Ring Road before turning left to go west.
Just a little over 200m on the Ring Road, we’d then turn right to go onto the Route 95 (Skriðdals- og Breiðdalsvegur) and follow this road through the valley for nearly 20km.
Then, there was a signed turnoff for “Flögufoss” on the left for the 966 Road, which we then took.
Finally, after about 1.2km, we then reached a turnoff signposted for “Flaga”, but because all of the roads at this turnoff were too rough for my liking, we opted to park the car at a space off the road (so we don’t block it).
From there, we walked the rest of the way as described in the write-up above.
Overall, this drive would take a little under 30 minutes.
Conversely, if we were coming in the opposite direction from Egilsstaðir, then we’d drive 61km on the Route 95 into Breiðdalur, where we’d then turn right onto the 660 Road.
From there, we’d drive 1.2km to the Flaga turnoff and walk the rest of the way as described above.
Overall, that drive would take about an hour, but it might be closed due to snow outside the Summer months because it involves driving through the pass at Breiðdalsheiði.
Just to give you a little bit of perspective on distances, Djúpivogur is about 104km (about 90 minutes drive) east of Höfn, 85km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Egilsstaðir, 297km (about 4 hours drive) east of Kirkjubæjarklaustur, 331km (about 4.5 hours drive) southeast of Akureyri, and 552km (over 7 hours drive) east of Reykjavík.
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Comprehensive sweep of Flogufoss starting with a more distant view revealing a lot of the pinnacles behind the falls and then going up the hill for a more frontal look at both the falls and its natural bridge along with the pinnacles
Sweep starting from the end of the trail before backing up to a more contextual view
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