Travelogue

Fjaðrárgljúfur CanyonAs I mentioned, Herb and I had watched hours of YouTube videos about Iceland while planning our itinerary. I hate to admit that one of those was a Justin Bieber music video where he was prancing around on precarious outcrops over a stunning canyon called Fjaðrárgljúfur.

It popularized that canyon so much and became so overrun with visitors that local authorities closed it to the public to protect the vegetation. In fact, when we looked for directions to it on Google Maps, it still said it was temporarily closed.

Since it was only a 2 mile diversion off the Ring Road, we decided to ignore that, as Google is not invincible, and try going there anyway. Luckily, we did, because there were already plenty of people there.

Fjaðrárgljúfur CanyonJustin Bieber has good taste. It is an absolutely stunning narrow river canyon, approximately 100 meters tall and 2 km in length running through layers of soft granular rock, with Gothic-like spires and odd geological formations at the top.

It looks like it belongs in the world of Game of Thrones, and for good reason, as dragons fly through it in the Season 8 Trailer.

No dragons or Justin Bieber’s today though - just people like us out enjoying this amazingly beautiful setting.

Mögáfoss in Fjaðrárgljúfur CanyonThe only sign that Justin Bieber had been there is that there are now fences along the edge of the canyon preventing us from doing fancy dance moves out on a precarious outcrop

At the head of the canyon we came to the beautiful Mögáfoss (waterfall), where the Möga river meets the Fjaðrá river and cascades down into the canyon.

That was the end of the trail, so we hiked back from whence we came and continued on the Ring Road to Skaftafell National Park, where we planned to spend the night.