Keilir trail head by Höskuldarvellir
| Keilir from
Höskuldarvellir Keilir |
| Estimated net time | 2-2½ hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but the upper part is a little strenuous because of steep and loose gravel. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (August 2013). | ||
| Parking | Room for several cars at trail head car park. | ||
| Start height | 125 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 300 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 7.5 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From down-town Reykjavik drive road 41 approximately 23 km in the direction of Keflavik. Turn right onto road 240, signed "Keilir", and go around the round about 270°. Drive under road 41 and straight through the next round about. From this round about drive 1.4 km and turn right onto a rough gravel road. Drive 6.7 km along this road, making sure you stay right after 300 metres, and park on the car park on the right hand side of the road.
Start your hike by following a path on the right hand side of something that looks like a moraine. Stay on the path 640 metres and turn right onto much rougher lava territory, where you will be able to see a vague path. When you've crossed the rougher lava area the path gets much more clearly defined, and will take you to the base of Keilir. From here there's an obvious path leading up to the summit, which is marked by several objects.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
Our first full day at Iceland, after having flown in from Boston late the night before, and the plan was to go for a hike and visit the Blue Lagoon. The choice of mountain was relatively easy, since it was clouds down to 600 metres we wanted to stay relatively low, and we wanted to combine the drive towards the Blue Lagoon with the hike. Hence Keilir.
Driving towards Keilir was interesting in itself, with a distinct lava area over a large area of land, and then the nice little top sticking up like a sugar loaf in the distant. Whether the final stretch of road towards the trail head was interesting or not is another discussion, but it was definitely on the rough side for a non-4WD car.
The hike was uneventful, and the views limited because of the low clouds, but we did get a good impression of south-west Iceland, with is flat lava terrain and small volcanoes here and there. More interesting than picturesque, but nice in its own way.
After the hike we drove to the Blue Lagoon, where we paid a fortune, but I assume it's just one of the must do activities on Iceland. And it was actually a fine experience.