Skógafoss

Interesting facts

The name means 'forest waterfall', taken from the nearby farmstead of Skógar, whose name means 'forests' in Icelandic.

Spilling over a ledge about 25 metres wide, Skógafoss ranks among the largest waterfalls in Iceland.

Skógafoss was formally protected as a natural monument in 1987.

A ring said to come from Þrasi's treasure chest was given to the local church as a door handle and is now kept in the Skógar museum.

From the top, a trail follows the river up to the Fimmvörðuháls pass between the Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull glaciers, and on down to Þórsmörk.

In 2013 it appeared in two Hollywood films, Thor: The Dark World and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

In the final season of Game of Thrones, Daenerys and Jon fly their dragons to Skógafoss and share a kiss in front of it.

The TV series Vikings used the falls in a 2017 episode depicting the Norse discovery of Iceland by the character Floki.

Why it is worth it

Skógafoss doesn't sit on a lava field or a fault line — it sits on what used to be the edge of Iceland itself. After the last Ice Age, as the ice sheets melted and the crust rebounded from their weight, Iceland's south coast retreated roughly five kilometres seawards, leaving a line of old sea cliffs standing inland. The Skógá river now spills over one of those fossil cliffs, which is why the waterfall looks less like a mountain torrent and more like water pouring off the edge of a table.

Local legend says a Viking settler named Þrasi Þórólfsson hid a chest of gold beneath the falls around the year 900, and that the first person to reach it would keep the treasure. Around 1600, three men are said to have tried: mid-rescue they thought their farm was on fire, ran back to find nothing wrong, returned to the falls, hooked the ring on the chest's lid — and watched the ring snap off as they pulled, sending the chest back into the pool. Nobody has produced the chest since, which is either proof it never existed or the best argument yet for a longer rope.

A steep staircase of 527 steps climbs the old cliff face beside the falls to a viewing platform above, giving a rare vantage most waterfalls don't offer: looking down into the spray and across the flat farmland stretching to the sea. On sunny afternoons the mist thrown up by the 62-metre drop routinely produces a double rainbow — a big enough draw that Skógafoss has become one of the most photographed single frames on Iceland's south coast, right next to the older turf farmhouses of the open-air Skógar museum a short walk away.

Good to know

The staircase can ice over in winter — railings help, but the steps themselves get slick. The waterfall keeps flowing year-round, fed by the Skógá river and the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, so it never fully freezes.

Best time to visit

Midday sun on a clear day gives the best chance of the double rainbow in the spray. Early morning avoids the tour-bus crowds that build up around midday in summer.

Getting there

135 km from Reykjavík. Reykjavík Domestic Airport (RKV) is about 137 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Skógafoss is a waterfall on the Skógá River in the south of Iceland at the cliff marking the former coastline. After the coastline had receded, the former sea cliffs remained, parallel to the coast over hundreds of kilometres, creating together with some mountains a clear border between the coastal lowlands and the Highlands of Iceland.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0