Skeiðarársandur

63.5400°N, 17.1400°W

Skeiðarársandur is a vast black sand desert between Lómagnúpur mountain and Skaftafell national park and from Vatnajökull to the sea, covering about 1300 km². There were once many farms in this area, but sadly they were destroyed by terrible floods from Grímsvötn eruptions at the beginning of October, 1996, breaking their way under Vatnajökull glacier. This was called ,,Skeiðarárhlaup” and it has been compared with the Amazon river, only with hundreds and thousands of tons of glacier debris and huge rocks floating along with it, destroying everything in their path.

In 1974, 2 bridges were built across the rivers Núpsvötn, Sandgígjukvísl, and Skeiðará, thus completing the ring road around Iceland. This flood in 1996 completely demolished one of the bridges and only damaged the other one. You can still see the bridge that withstood the flood from the ring road, and another wreckage a little further down the road from the destroyed bridge, that is really popular to take photographs with, it is called: Skeiðará Bridge monument.. It’s 20 minutes from Lómagnúpur & 5 minutes from Skaftafellsjökull glacier parking lot.

Braided rivers: Skeiðarársandur is filled with braided rivers running its way through it, all the way from Vatnajökull glacier, to the North Atlantic Ocean. Braided rivers in Iceland have become a huge frenzy. This is one of the most incredible sights to see when flying over them. They can only be seen flying over it in an airplane or in some places in Iceland you can use a drone but I don’t recommend it there.

Surrounding locations:​​​

• Foss á síðu
• Dverghamrar
• Núpsstaður
• Lómagnúpur
• Skeiðará bridge monument
• Skaftafellsjökull

Tours in the area: