Svartifoss Waterfall

The columns hang from the lip of the cliff like the pipes of a dark organ, their snapped-off ends jutting out overhead, and the water comes down between them as a single white thread. Below, the curved wall closes around the pool. The base is a heap of sharp, angular blocks, because new column sections break away faster than the falling water can wear their edges smooth.

Look closely at the columns. Horizontal grooves cross their faces, spaced between 5 and 20 cm apart, each one a stage of the crack that opened as the lava cooled and shrank. On the flat ends of broken sections, circular rings stand out by several millimetres, with fine lines radiating from them, formed in the last stage of cooling.

• There are no toilets and no drinking water within 800 m of the falls, so carry water with you.
• An information board on the columnar basalt stands about 200 m from the falls and explains the rock you are about to see.
• The falls are a thin ribbon of water; after a lot of Icelandic waterfalls, the basalt columns are the reason to make the climb.

The last stretch is on foot. The trail to Svartifoss starts directly from the car park at Skaftafell and climbs the slope above it, passing smaller cascades on the way up, among them Hundafoss. Arriving by bus, you get off at the Skaftafell stop, which sits at about the same distance from the falls as the car park, and walk up from there.

Best: weekdays, when the trail up from Skaftafell is quieter. Avoid: Saturdays in summer. The path gets very busy on summer weekends, and the columns photograph best with fewer people standing in front of them.

Svartifoss lies inside Vatnajökull National Park, and park rules apply on the walk. Keep to the marked trails: moss and low vegetation on the slopes recover slowly from trampling. Driving off marked roads is banned across Iceland. Flying a drone in the park needs permission from the park authority, and camping is allowed only at designated campsites.