When I solo traveled Iceland for a couple of days recently, I also drove to a small town named Hveragerdi. It was an unplanned trip because I made a plan to drive there in the morning after I woke up, I needed to spend my morning and noon hours of the day somehow. I had a major hike planned for the evening time. Since the weather was really good, I wanted to take a short walk/hike somewhere else too.
Hveragerdi is located in southwest Iceland and the town is very active geologically. Near the mountainsides, there are numerous areas that are boiling and spewing hot steam and sulfur. I decided to check some of it out.
This is where my walk started.
Next to the trail, I was quickly able to see some hotspots which are boiling with water you should not touch.
The trail itself was short-lived and I decided to get off of it and make my own way to somewhere... I didn't know where I was going really. I just started walking uphill from a very small trail, I have no idea who uses this trail or maybe it's an animal path, who knows? You can also notice the hillside that have a couple of random steaming spots on it.
Soon I had decided to conquer this mountaintop you see in the photo. It looks easy but trusts me it only looks like that in the photo, at some point I had to climb pretty much a vertical wall.
I found more dangerous grounds. I wonder if stepping on there, will the surface be soft and I sink into 100C ground. Whatever the case I didn't try it out.
I was getting closer to the point I wanted to reach but the terrain was now getting more rugged and steep. There was also no trail so I had to improvise and make my own way up there. I started to hear water rushing, so there was a waterfall somewhere nearby, I decided to find it.
Soon I started seeing what I was hearing. A small waterfall coming down from the mountain. I wanted to get right next to it. I was worried about falling and smashing my camera but I tried anyway. I can't but wonder when was the last time when someone went there because it's such a random thing to do to hike this certain place.
Fast forward some minutes and I was next to it.
That bowl of water looked pretty cool.
Having checked out the unexpected waterfall, it was time to get up the mountain all the way. It was hard but I managed.
Here are some beautiful views that appeared to me up there.
I wasn't able to leave without a selfie so I had to take one. Had to use a timer because I was alone.
I also wanted to see the waterfall from above so I made my way there. It was actually an extremely dangerous place to go because If I were to slip accidentally then I would fall 30m down to my death from this cliff. Unfortunately, I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie at times and I tend to do stuff like that.
It was time to go down and I decided to choose another route for that. Might be even more dangerous than the cliffs I climbed. I got close to several mud pools and hot grounds that no one goes it seems like. But that's a story for another post, this one got already too long.
I love taking hikes to totally random places and discovering landscape features and hidden waterfalls like this one. Places where no tourist probably ever goes and it was just the place. Damn, I miss Iceland again. Happens every time I make a post about this country.
