One of the more spectacular things and tragic things to see in Iceland is the jökull (glaciers). Sólheimajökull is a glacier in southern Iceland, between the volcanoes Katla and Eyjafjallajökull. It is part of the larger Mýrdalsjökull glacier and easily accessible. The day we visited it was supposed to rain but somehow we out ran the rain but definitely not the wind. When we got out to do the short hike we faced a 50mph headwind on the upper trail so decided to walk down near the water where we were a little more sheltered.

The sad aspect of the glaciers is they are being quickly destroyed by climate change and could be completely gone in less than 100 years. The little white sign in this picture is where the local school children measure how far it has receded each year and write it down on this sign. From 2010 to 2022 the glacier has receded 763 meters.

When chunks fall off they wash down or get blown down the river or onto the shore.

One of the local guides left some kayaks on the beach, I was a little surprised they hadn’t blown away!

Our next glacier stop was the Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon an outlet of Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe.

I thought this iceberg looked like a fish…

Further down the road is a larger glacial lake, Jökulsárlón.

As you can probably tell, the storm was catching up to us as the sun disappeared and the winds continued.

The lake has grown four times in size since the 70’s due to climate change and watching the giant icebergs move around is pretty impressive.

They head down river and out to the ocean (the famous Diamond Beach) where they are thrown back on the shore by large waves.

After walking to the beach, you could tell the tide was coming up and pushing the beach sediment back into the glacial lagoon, creating some interesting colors.

If you look carefully at the above picture you can see a seal in the left corner that was fishing in the tidal change zone. I don’t suggest trying to do Diamond Beach & these glaciers as a day trip from Reykjavik , it is a very long tough drive. We saw lots of busses that were doing this as a day trip & I can only imagine how exhausted those people must have been. We continued on to Höfn, a small fishing town for the night which was still about an hour away. That’s it for now.