FEBRUARY 2025 · ESCAPE
Iceland — The Roadtrip Home
South Coast & Golden Circle · Iceland
The first stop was Brúarfoss. A canyon cut by glacial melt, the water a colour somewhere between turquoise and a swimming pool — unreal against black lava walls still holding February ice. You walk down to the edge and the colour hits you before the cold does. Ice had broken off and settled on the rocks. One piece sat balanced on the lip of the bank like something positioned.
Gljúfrabúi, the hidden waterfall, requires a short wade and a squeeze through a slot in the cliff. The chamber inside is maybe ten metres across. The falls come straight down the back wall and fill the whole space with noise and spray. Standing there, you're either directly in it or you're not. A figure inside the chamber looks about the size of a comma.
The colour was already gone.
South Iceland — February 2025
Reynisfjara is the black sand beach below Vík. You arrive across a parking lot, which prepares you for nothing. The sand is volcanic grit, nearly purple in flat light. The Reynisdrangar stacks stand offshore in the mist, still half-formed. Tangled kelp and dried grass pressed flat against the shore. Above the beach: the small white church at Vík, red roof, below a mountain still holding snow.
The drive north was the last day. The landscape flattened. Fence posts, brown grass, pylons marching toward the mountains on the horizon. I switched to black and white. Under a long steel bridge crossing a glacial river, someone had left a mark on the concrete pier. Small, teal, on the central support.
The last frames were pylons. The colour was already gone.
Tangled dried seaweed on Reynisfjara black sand beach with sea stack silhouettes in sea mist, Vík, Iceland
Turquoise glacial river threading through a narrow lava rock canyon, Iceland
Small red-roofed church standing alone beneath snow-streaked volcanic peaks under heavy cloud, Vík, Iceland
Figure standing inside a narrow slot canyon as a powerful waterfall pours down the rock wall behind them, Iceland
Steel bridge underside over turquoise glacial water with a mark on the central pier, Iceland
Reynisfjara black sand beach with the Reynisdrangar sea stacks rising from the mist, Vík, Iceland
Tall waterfall crashing down a dark cliff face into a misty pool viewed from the base, south Iceland
Base of a large waterfall with mist drifting over dark rocks and still water below, south Iceland
Person standing at the edge of a turquoise river canyon looking toward a distant waterfall, Iceland
Clear ice chunk resting on dark lava rock between the walls of a vivid turquoise canyon, Iceland
Close-up of a translucent ice block on lava rock above a vivid turquoise river, Iceland
Turquoise glacial river flowing between tall lava rock walls under an overcast sky, Iceland
Meltwater stream zigzagging through frost-brown moorland below a cascading waterfall, Iceland
Long-exposure meltwater stream through winter moorland with a waterfall dropping from dark cliffs above, Iceland
Weathered wooden fence posts stretching across flat golden grassland toward an isolated volcanic rock, south Iceland
Symmetrical underside of a long steel bridge spanning turquoise glacial water under storm clouds, Iceland
Electricity pylons receding across a flat lava plain toward snow-covered mountains, black and white, Iceland
Single electricity pylon with power cables converging from both sides against an overcast sky, black and white, Iceland