Our second day was a day trip to the Snaefellsnes peninsula, which ended up being my favorite day of the trip! Like our others, it started with a breakfast at Joe and the Juice in downtown Reykjavik. After that we had a scenic drive going northward along the coast, the most exciting part of which was our journey through the Hvalfjordur tunnel. It’s nearly 4 miles long and reaches a depth of 500 feet, which surprised our group the first time going through. Especially Jared, who tried doing that thing where you’re supposed to hold your breath through tunnels. Once we reached the peninsula itself, our idea was to just drive around until we found something we wanted to stop at. And boy, did we ever! 

We ended up making our first stop at a waterfall that we found tumbling over the Snaefellsnes peninsula’s plateau. Although the waterfall looked to be active, it was surrounded by a coating of snow, which piqued our interest. We parked the car and followed a path leading upwards, to the base of the falls. The path got steeper quicker than we anticipated, which got us climbing up on hands and knees at a couple points. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those cases where the waterfall looks a lot closer than it actually is. It took us just under an hour to climb to the top, where we were greeted with sweeping views of the peninsula and the bay to the south.

What really made this hike special was that, once we got closer to the waterfall, we could see that some of the smaller flows on the side were actually frozen! The white patches on the cliffside that we thought were snow were actually ice that hadn’t melted yet. We scrambled eagerly, but safely, up the boulder field to get a closer look. At the very top was another surprise: some of the hexagonal rock columns on the lower part of the falls was actually frozen water! The coating of ice on these pillars made them appear like they shimmered, and when we got closer we could observe the bumpy pattern that this ice had. It looked almost like the droplets from the falls had frozen in place, but this rough texture probably came from the mist of the falls blowing into the pillars and then freezing. The ice coated a few of the boulders near the pillars, so we had to really watch our step here. We took quite a while just marveling at the frozen patterns that the ice formed on the side of the falls, and the falls themselves, before heading back down together.

One last delight on our descent was another batch of snow flurries that picked up once we’d left the boulder field. I normally don’t like the cold, but I have a great time when the snow flutters all around me. We scampered back down to our car in high spirits, and blasted Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” when we got back on the road. Pretty soon, we ended up in a small town called Hellnar, which had a single fish and chips shop for food. So, that was our lunch. After that, we got to wander around the rocky coast a bit, which was pretty scenic. After a half hour of wandering, it was time to get back in the car.

The last part of our day trip was definitely the most adrenaline-pumping, though. After our lunch and coastal walking in Hellnar, we thought about circling around the coast of the peninsula before heading back. But it looked like there was a shortcut that went past the peninsula’s main mountain, so we decided to check that out first. What we found, shortly off the main road, was a set of dual tire tracks heading straight up the mountainside. Since the snow wasn’t very thick the treads were easy to drive on, but not necessarily that easy to see. We went up the first slope, but started feeling uneasy about halfway up. Since there was nowhere to turn around, Ben did an excellent job backing us down all the way in reverse. But before we could revert to our original plan, an Icelandic dude in a pickup came down the mountain right after us. He rolled down his window, took one look at our car, and said “I think you guys can make it”. So we gave each other one look and decided to try again. 

This time we made it further up onto the mountain, where the slope evened out. However, it had started snowing a little harder and clouds nearby made it clear that the weather could change quickly on a mountain like this. Eventually, we decided to park the car on a flat plain and explore a little further up on foot, to see if the tracks still stood out against the falling snow. I rushed off ahead of the group, but made sure to always keep at least one person in sight. Eventually I reached a ridge, and because of the weather it became hard to see where the road went. I turned around and walked back to our car, in order to report this to everyone. But when I got back, Jared was missing. Before I could ask what had happened to him, my question answered itself when I saw the top of him hunched over a cluster of rocks some distance away. It turned out… on the side of a snowy mountain with a snowstorm possibly coming our way, that Jared just had to drop a deuce in the snow. Honestly, due to the chilling temperatures up there it’ll probably end up looking similar to the rocks up there. Maybe it’ll become fossilized and aliens will use it to confirm the record of our existence… who knows. Anyway, we drove back down the way we came soon after that, just in case the weather turned ugly. Fortunately, the most we saw on our way down were the same light snow flurries as before. The rest was an uneventful 2 hour drive back to our AirBnB in Reykjavik.

So, I think it’s clear from this segment that we’re ready to give a rave review from our time on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. The Bjarnafoss waterfall just off to the roadside was in such a unique state when we hiked up to it, and to this day it’s still probably the most fascinating waterfall experience I’ve ever had. Hellnar was nice and worth a stop, but I wouldn’t come all the way out here just for that. And the mountain we ended up driving on… that was an experience we probably won’t repeat, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. I’d absolutely recommend this one as a day trip from Reykjavik, and I’d go as far as to recommend it over the Golden Circle road we drove the previous day.