Dettifoss

Dettifoss is less a waterfall than a collapse of the landscape. The Jökulsá á Fjöllum, a glacial river born under Vatnajökull, arrives across a bare plateau of grey gravel and lava and drops 44 metres over a lip about 100 metres wide into the head of the Jökulsárgljúfur canyon. The water is not white but milky, laden with ground rock from the ice, and with an average flow of close to 200 cubic metres a second it throws up a column of spray that can be seen long before the falls themselves, and felt as a trembling underfoot at the edge. By volume it is counted among the most powerful waterfalls in Europe.

What makes the place remarkable is the setting as much as the drop. There is no green valley here, no framing forest: the river has cut a raw gorge into the plateau, and Dettifoss is the middle of three great falls on the same short stretch. About a kilometre upstream, Selfoss spills over a broad, ragged horseshoe of many small cascades; around two kilometres downstream, Hafragilsfoss plunges into a deeper, darker section of the canyon. Walking between them shows how the river is still eating its way back into the plateau.

The falls lie within Vatnajökull National Park, and their otherworldly bleakness has been noticed: the opening scene of the 2012 film Prometheus, a vision of a primeval Earth, was filmed here, and the Icelandic composer Jón Leifs wrote an orchestral work named after the falls. The two banks offer different views. From the west, a paved road and path lead to viewpoints where the spray often drenches visitors; from the east, reached by a gravel road open in summer, the falls are seen more head-on and from a little further away.

Getting there

Dettifoss is in North-East Iceland. Akureyri, the main town of the north, is about 80 km away as the crow flies and about 133 km by road via the Ring Road and paved Route 862 to the west bank; the east bank is reached by the gravel Route 864 in summer. The closest airfield is Vopnafjörður (VPN), about 71 km away, but most travellers fly into Akureyri (AEY) and drive. The falls are a standard stop on the Diamond Circle route with Lake Mývatn and Húsavík.