On the Westfjords of Iceland is a mountain named Sandafell and we had planned to hike it, this is exactly what we did. The mountain itself is not insanely high, only 367 meters but it's right next to sea level so it looks really high. It is located right next to the small coastal town of Thingeiry.
On the side of the mountain is a road, it is technically possible to drive up to the top with a car but the road is very rugged and you would need a car with 4WD and high clearance. We did not have a car for this and after all, we were up for a hike.
After a short while of hiking, you can already see amazing views appearing over nearby valleys.
Here you can also see the road leading up. There is a road because on the top of the mountain is a mast that needs to be maintained.
The weather was gloomy and made every photo I took look very dramatic and I liked it.
Hike to the top took us about 35 minutes if I remember correctly not very long but it's enough to make us exhausted. At times the walk got quite steep.
When we reached the top, the views were simply put breathtaking.
Sandafell mountain is so perfectly placed that you can see the valleys and fjords all around you plus the seascapes, its like a center point to everything in there.
Here you can partly see the town of Thingeyri, where we spent the night.
For the next day, we had planned to take a major hike to the highest mountain of the westfjords, Kaldbakur.
Kaldbakur reaches more than 1000 meters in height and we had planned the whole next day for this activity. Sadly, this only stayed the plan because the conditions got really snowy in the mountains which makes the hike very dangerous to attempt. Also, the weather needs to be good, which it was the next day but it's still not enough to attempt it with deep snow.
From the top of Sandafell mountain, it is possible to see the summit of Kaldbakur, below is the photo, the exact top is in the clouds. Hopefully, we can hike it some other time in the future.
Another sharp summit, taken with my telephoto lens.
Here are some more breathtaking views I saw on the summit of Sandafell, just amazing.
The following photo I so dope, I just stared at it for a while when I post-processed it. This is one of my favorite shots from Iceland for sure. Snowy mountains, snowless landscape and the road that goes up to the mountains make one hell of a shot. I drove along this road when arriving at Thingeiry.
I was having a hard time choosing if a black and white photo is better than in color. I failed to decide and exported this shot both ways, uploading the color shot here.
Finally, on the mast, there were a bunch of ravens that fought over one pole, who can stand on it. They didn't seem to care that there are like 30 poles, more than there were ravens but they just were obsessed with one pole, here is a picture of them.
That was an amazing hike overall and I am looking forward to hiking it again when I happen to travel in the area again. I wounder how its like with sunny weather, or with a sunset.
