ICELAND – Day three SKOGAFOSS – Tim Durham Photography

Day three – cont’d

The middle of day three finds us heading for yet another waterfall. Sigh. It couldn’t possibly be as pretty as Seljanlandsfoss. Or could it?

Skogafoss is considered to be one of Iceland’s most beautiful waterfalls. (Ed note: I haven’t seen an ugly one yet.) Some are small and intricate, some are large and majestic. For Iceland, I’m going to have to rate this one as (SPOILER ALERT) “majestic” by Icelandic standards.

And Skogafoss is only one of twenty or more falls in the local area below Eyjafjallajokull and Myrdalsjokull glaciers. And do you know what it costs in kroner/u.s. dollars to visit? That would be nada… and nada.

Skogafoss

According to legend, a settler named Prasi hid his chest of gold behind Skógafoss, where it would be hard to reach. For a long time, one end of the chest was visible through the waterfall. Three men from Skógar once attempted to retrieve the chest, managing with great difficulty to place a hook in an iron ring on the side of the chest. They pulled hard, but the chest was so heavy that the iron ring came loose and the mission was aborted.

The ring was placed on the door of the local Skógar church, but was later placed in the Skógar folk museum.

Skógar Church

Drive up, park, and walk to the falls, or anywhere you’re brave enough to venture. Remember, this is not America, or even Europe. There aren’t any fences between you and cliffs, waters, or even eternity. Your choice. I hope that you make a wise choice, Grasshopper.

The Skóka river above opens to a wide flat rocky area on the moor before rushing off the edge 25 meters wide and falling 62 meters to the pool underneath the falls. Are you getting comfortable with the metric system now?

(Visually, 62 meters = about 2/3 of the length of an American football field).

The waterfall generates a huge amount of spray and noise. As I approached the tempest, I drank in the roar of the falls, the super-coolness of the wind in my face coming off the falls, and the irony of being able to look upward through the swirling mists to see a bright sunny day just above. And I know that most of you will consider this odd, but the thought came to me that the place… smelled fresh. A clean scent. No chemicals added, no Pine-sol, just Mother Nature doing her thing. Ahhh, peace.