{"id":26344,"date":"2026-11-07T12:24:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/?p=26344"},"modified":"2026-11-07T12:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:58:23","slug":"snaefellsjokull-national-park-in-snaefellsas-peninsula-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/2026\/11\/07\/snaefellsjokull-national-park-in-snaefellsas-peninsula-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"Snaefellsjokull National Park in Sn\u00e6fells\u00e1s Peninsula, Iceland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

continued<\/a>… we headed to Snaefellsjokull National Park. It was a relatively short drive from the gorge. We didn’t have to turn off the road to enter into the park — we merely drove past a sign that said Welcome to the Park. Nor were there any fees to enter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Snaefellsjokull National Park was established in 2001. The Snaefellsjokull Glacier was the park’s centerpiece, and the 66 square miles (170 square kilometers) of the park surrounded the glacier and some of the nearby seashore. The glacier<\/a> was situated on top of a 700,000-year-old stratovolcano<\/a>, and together they were 4,744 feet (1,446 meters) tall. The mountain has been built up by repeated eruptions over roughly the last 800,000 years. It last erupted about 1,800 years ago and was still classed as an active volcano. Currently, the glacier covered around 10 km2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did turn off the main road to drive to a viewpoint in a small village along the waterfront called Hellnar. On the way, we stopped because we saw a couple of signs along the side of the road. We were glad we’d stopped, as this was also a lovely viewpoint. Looking towards the ocean and Hellnar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And looking up at the glacier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The first sign said we were between Stapi and Hellnar (Stapi was another small waterfront village with beautiful views). The second sign was in front of a pile of rocks. It said this was the Oxl Observation Point and Dreplakolludys Cairn. The wording was badly faded, so we couldn’t really read it, but we could see enough to figure out it was another homage to the area’s serial killer.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We hopped back in the car<\/a> and continued on to Hellnar. Hellnar used to be one of the largest fishing stations of the peninsula, with the oldest written record of seafaring there from 1560. By 1703, there were 38 houses, which was significant for Iceland at the time. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, Iceland began to develop and industrialize, and its fishing and trading industries moved to\u00a0Reyjav\u00edk<\/a>. Hellnar rapidly lost its population and importance. The settlement was abandoned but for a few farms and a few resilient locals, until tourism began to boom in Iceland. Now, Hellnar hosted the guesthouse for Snaefellsnes National Park and was a center for visitors in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village was indeed tiny. There was a parking lot and parking was free. It was indeed a beautiful viewpoint. Here was a panorama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since everything was so small in the photo above, here were a couple of shots with better detail. They could be fused together into a better panorama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And these are zoomed in of the cliffs along the shoreline. Look at the dock — clearly, the tide swings were enormous here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And here was a close up of the glacier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a walking trail that went to Stapi, following the dramatic cliffs. Apparently, there were some interesting formations along the walk, including an arch<\/a>. We skipped the walk. We backtracked to the main road and continued on to the next viewpoint, which overlooked dramatic volcanic rock formations called the Londrangar Cliffs, which was several miles away. We saw the unique tall, thin formations at least a mile before arriving at the parking lot, which was right off the main highway and parking was free. We followed a walkway up to a viewing platform. The view of the glacier from the walkway was stunning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The cliffs were actually volcanic plugs formed thousands of years ago and were once part of a large crater. The taller rock was 246 feet (75 meters) tall, and the smaller one was 200 feet tall (61 meters). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here was a shot from a different angle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like Dyrh\u00f3laey<\/a>, this was an important nesting habitat for sea birds. Here is a closer in view of one of the fingers in the cliffs. You can see birds flying around and, to the right, nesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And an even closer shot in of the birds on the cliffs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And a closer shot of the birds nesting in the grass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here was the view looking the opposite direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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People were allowed to walk up to the volcanic plugs, but we decided it was best to move on. We were anxious to get to our main attraction. We piled back into the car and made the relatively short drive to… to be continued… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

continued… we headed to Snaefellsjokull National Park. It was a relatively short drive from the gorge. We didn’t have to turn off the road to enter into the park — we merely drove past a sign that said Welcome to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,39,1,428,44,429,398,399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-europe","category-general","category-geological-sites","category-history","category-iceland","category-tourist-activities","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26344"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26408,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions\/26408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}