Dynjandi

Dynjandi does not fall so much as spread. The Dynjandisá river tips over the rim of the high moorland above Arnarfjörður and fans out across a stepped rock face, roughly 30 metres wide at the top and about twice that at the foot, so that the whole cataract takes the shape of a bridal veil or a broad trapezoid of white lace. The drop is around 100 metres in all, and the name means something like "the thundering one" — a fair description of the sound that fills the valley long before the main fall comes into view. It is the largest waterfall in the Westfjords, and an older name, Fjallfoss, is still sometimes used.

What makes the place memorable is that the big fall is only the top of a staircase. Below it the river keeps dropping through a chain of smaller falls, each with its own name — Háifoss, Úðafoss, Göngufoss, Hundafoss and Bæjarfoss among them — and the path from the shore climbs past them one by one. Each step gives a different angle on the great white apron above. From the top the view opens out over the grey-blue water of Arnarfjörður and the steep, layered basalt mountains that define this corner of Iceland.

The falls and their surroundings were protected as a natural monument in 1981. The landscape is almost empty: no village, just a car park at the head of the fjord and the road that climbs away over the Dynjandisheiði plateau. That road, built over the pass in 1959, was the first car-accessible link to Ísafjörður, and for years it was the reason travellers crossing the Westfjords stopped here at all. Summer brings the strongest flow, fed by snowmelt from the plateau, when the fall can carry several cubic metres of water every second.

Getting there

Dynjandi lies at the head of Arnarfjörður on Route 60 (Vestfjarðavegur), the main road through the Westfjords, with a car park at the foot of the falls. From there a path of about 2 km climbs past the lower cascades to the main fall — allow 15 to 30 minutes each way. The nearest airport is Ísafjörður Airport (IFJ), about 36 km in a straight line; Ísafjörður, the main town of the region, is roughly an hour's drive north. Keflavík, near Iceland's international gateway, is some 195 km away as the crow flies but much further by road. Another approach is the Baldur car ferry from Stykkishólmur on Snæfellsnes to Brjánslækur, then a drive north over the Dynjandisheiði pass.