Rollutorfufoss Waterfall

Rollutorfufoss is the seventh waterfall on the Skógá above Skógafoss, and by the seventh the crowds are gone. The drop is about 5 metres, which is modest for Iceland, and nobody walks this far for the height alone. What the river gives is the sequence: cascade after cascade in the gorge, each one different, with Rollutorfufoss as a marker of how far up you have come. In low cloud it greys out and shows far less than the photographs promise. On a clear day you get the water, the gorge and an empty bank.

• Nothing is provided here. No toilets, drinking water or information point within 5 km of the waterfall.
• No parking at the fall. The nearest car park is about 1.9 km away; the paved one about 2.2 km away charges a fee.
• You walk in. There is no road to Rollutorfufoss — the last stretch is on foot along the Skógá, whatever the weather.
• Low cloud closes it down. In mist the waterfall is a grey outline and the gorge below it disappears.

There is no road to Rollutorfufoss. Drivers leave the car at Skógar and walk up the Fimmvörðuháls route, which follows the Skógá gorge above Skógafoss. Rollutorfufoss is the seventh waterfall on that stretch, so six others come first. There is no shortcut and no closer approach: the walk in is the visit, and the way back down is the same path.

Better: a clear day, when the fall and the gorge below it are visible from the path.

Avoid: low cloud over the Skógá.

Cloud settles on this stretch of the river and reduces the waterfall to a grey shape behind mist. Crowds are not the problem this far up the river — weather is. Check the sky before committing to the walk, because the same route in cloud gives you six invisible waterfalls and then a seventh.