View on the West Fjord

The panorama opens in every direction from a pull-off at the roadside: fjord water below, ridge lines on the far shore, and more fjords behind them. Glaciers cut this coast into long, steep-sided inlets, and the shape of that work is plain from up here. It reads as a reward at the end of a long driving day, and it costs nothing but the time to get out of the car.

One thing to get right: this is not the viewpoint with the compass stand. That is a separate stop further up the road, and the two are easily confused.

• No facilities: there are no toilets and no drinking water at the viewpoint, and none anywhere close by.
• Not the compass stand: the viewpoint with the compass is a different stop, further up the road.
• Weather decides: in low cloud or heavy rain the fjords disappear and there is nothing to see here.
• Exposed ground: nothing breaks the wind at the edge of the pull-off. Take a windproof layer even on a warm day.

You drive to this one. The viewpoint sits directly beside the road, and the gravel parking is at the viewpoint itself, so there is no walk in and no path to find. A second parking area lies within half a kilometre. Nothing about the approach needs planning: pull off, stop, look.

Better: a clear day, when the far shore and the ridges behind it are visible.

Avoid: low cloud and heavy rain, which leave nothing to look at.

Everything here depends on visibility rather than on the hour. In midsummer the light in the Westfjords holds late into the night, so an evening stop works as well as a middle-of-the-day one.