Hraunfossar
Interesting facts
- The springs pour out about 5 cubic metres of water per second and keep running all year round.
- Locals also call the falls Girðingar, and the stretch of lava they emerge from is known as Gráhraun, the 'grey lava'.
- The Hallmundarhraun lava field formed in a large eruption near Langjökull in the early 10th century, around the time Iceland was being settled.
- The same lava field holds Víðgelmir, Iceland's largest lava tube, about 1.6 km long with passages up to some 16 m high and wide.
- Surtshellir and Stefánshellir, also in Hallmundarhraun, together form a lava cave system around 3.5 km long, the longest in Iceland.
- The Hvítá at neighbouring Barnafoss carries about 80 cubic metres per second on average, and floods of up to 500 have spilled over the gorge.
- According to one version of the folk tale, the grieving mother cursed the stone arch so that anyone crossing it would drown, and an earthquake later brought it down.
- In the legend the two drowned boys came from the farm Hraunsás and were following their parents, who had gone to church.
Why it is worth it
Hraunfossar is a waterfall without a river above it. Along roughly 900 metres to a kilometre of the north bank of the Hvítá in Borgarfjörður, west Iceland, water simply appears out of the edge of an old lava flow and spills over the dark rock into the river in hundreds of small cascades, veils and threads. The name means "lava falls", and it is exact: the water has travelled underground through the porous Hallmundarhraun lava field, which came from vents beneath the Langjökull ice cap and emerges here at the lava's edge.
What makes the place so beautiful is the contrast of textures and colours. The springs are cold — around 3.5 °C — and crystal clear, filtered by the rock, while the Hvítá below runs milky turquoise with glacial silt. Between them lies the dark, broken edge of the lava, so each white rivulet stands out sharply before it vanishes into the blue-green current. From the bank above, the eye can follow the line of springs downstream, one after another, as if the bank itself were leaking light.
A few minutes' walk upstream is Barnafoss, "the children's waterfall", where the whole river is forced through a narrow gorge and has carved arches into the rock. Local tradition tells that two children from a nearby farm fell to their deaths while crossing a natural stone bridge here, and that their grieving mother had the arch destroyed so that no one would suffer the same fate. The contrast between the two — Barnafoss all violence and noise, Hraunfossar all quiet seepage — is half the pleasure of the visit. The area has been a protected natural monument since 1987, and the Víðgelmir lava cave lies nearby in the same lava field.
Getting there
Hraunfossar lies in the upper Borgarfjörður district, close to the settlements of Reykholt and Húsafell. Reykjavík is about 77 km away as the crow flies; by road the trip is about 1.5 to 2 hours, north on Route 1, then Route 50 and Route 518 towards Reykholt and beyond. The nearest airport is Reykjavík Domestic Airport (RKV), about 79 km away in a straight line. A car or an organised tour is the usual way to arrive.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Hraunfossar is a series of waterfalls formed by rivulets streaming over a distance of about 900 metres out of the Hallmundarhraun, a lava field which flowed from an eruption of one of the volcanoes lying under the glacier Langjökull. The waterfalls pour into Hvítá (Borgarfjörður), from ledges of less porous rock in the lava. The name comes from the Icelandic word for lava (hraun) and the word for waterfalls (fossar). The Hraunfossar are situated near Húsafell and Reykholt and the Víðgelmir lava tube is close by.
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