Studlagil is a canyon in Jokuldalur, the glacier river valley about an hour inland from Egilsstadir in east Iceland. The first photograph has people in it deliberately, because the scale is the thing a photograph of basalt loses: those hexagonal columns are several metres tall, packed in curtains and fans along both walls, in the largest concentration of columnar basalt in Iceland.
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT THIS PLACE IS THAT NOBODY HAD SEEN IT UNTIL 2009. The Jokulsa a Dal ran full and grey with glacial silt, high enough to cover the columns completely. In 2009 the KARAHNJUKAR HYDROELECTRIC SCHEME, the largest construction project in Icelandic history, dammed and diverted the river to drive turbines for an aluminium smelter at Reydarfjordur. The flow here dropped, the water cleared to the pale blue-green the second and third photographs show, and the columns emerged. SO EVERY PHOTOGRAPH THAT SELLS THIS CANYON EXISTS BECAUSE OF A DAM, a dam that drowned a large area of highland and that Iceland argued about bitterly for a decade. That is worth knowing before you stand there calling it untouched nature. It is a landscape made visible by industry.
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What Is Here
THERE ARE TWO BANKS AND THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TRIPS. CHOOSING WRONG IS THE COMMONEST WAY THIS GOES BADLY.
THE WEST BANK IS THE EASY ONE. Drive to Grund, park, and walk a few hundred metres to a viewing platform looking down and across into the canyon. It takes twenty minutes, it is doable in any car in summer, and it gives you the overview in the second photograph. You do not get down among the columns.
THE EAST BANK IS THE ONE IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND IT IS A FOURTEEN KILOMETRE ROUND TRIP ON FOOT. You park at KLAUSTURSEL, cross the river on a footbridge, and walk about seven kilometres each way along a rough track to reach the riverbed where you can stand among the columns. Allow four to five hours. There is a gravel track that a modified high-clearance vehicle can use, and tour operators run it, but a standard hire car cannot and should not. People arrive at Klaustursel expecting a car park with a view, discover the distance, and either turn round disappointed or set off at four in the afternoon in trainers.
THE RIVER LEVEL DECIDES WHAT YOU SEE AND IT IS NOT SEASONAL IN THE WAY YOU EXPECT. Because the flow is now regulated by a dam, the water can rise when the reservoir spills, usually in late summer, and when it does the lower columns go back under. There is no published daily level for visitors; the honest advice is to look at recent photographs from the past week rather than at a forecast.
THERE ARE NO FACILITIES ON EITHER SIDE. No cafe, no lavatory, no water, no shop, and no mobile coverage for parts of the east bank walk. Egilsstadir is an hour away and is the nearest everything.
When to Go
Mid-June to mid-September, and that is not a preference but a window. The approach roads are gravel and the east bank walk is exposed; outside summer the track is snow-covered, the footbridge area ices, and the whole thing becomes a serious undertaking rather than a long walk.
SEPTEMBER IS THE PICK, which is the third photograph. The low scrub turns rust and gold, the light is long, the river is usually back down after the summer spill, and the mosquito-like midges of the inland valleys have gone.
WINTER IS FOR THE WEST BANK VIEWPOINT AT BEST. The canyon under snow is beautiful and the east bank walk in darkness and ice is not a reasonable solo plan. Route 1 over the eastern passes closes in weather, which is a separate problem: Studlagil is reached across highland road that shuts.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Iceland and the country has no /regional-risks page, so there is no partial advisory behind the summary. On terrorism it is unusually mild by its own standards, saying that ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO RECENT HISTORY OF TERRORISM IN ICELAND, ATTACKS CANNOT BE RULED OUT. On crime it says levels are LOW, with petty theft and antisocial behaviour PARTICULARLY AROUND BARS IN DOWNTOWN REYKJAVIK, which is the only location it names in the whole country. What the landing page does carry is a named VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS warning, and the detail there matters more than the headline: the eruptions since December 2023 have affected THE TOWN OF GRINDAVIK AND THE SURROUNDING AREA, and the FCDO states plainly that THE CAPITAL CITY, REYKJAVIK, KEFLAVIK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND THE REST OF ICELAND HAVE NOT BEEN AFFECTED. So this is a named-town situation rather than a country-level one, which is the opposite of how a reader skimming headlines would take it.
Getting There
An hour from Egilsstadir, which is itself a long way from everywhere. Egilsstadir is about 650km from Reykjavik by the south coast or 500km by the north, so this is a ring-road destination rather than a day trip. From Egilsstadir take Route 1 west then Route 923 up Jokuldalur. For the west bank continue to Grund; for the east bank turn off to Klaustursel.
ROUTE 923 IS GRAVEL FOR MUCH OF ITS LENGTH. It is not an F-road and a standard hire car is insured on it, but it is washboard gravel with blind crests and it punishes speed. Gravel chips are the second commonest Icelandic hire car claim and are usually excluded, like wind damage.
AND THERE IS NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Tours run from Egilsstadir and some include the east bank track in a modified vehicle, which is the sensible option if you do not want a five-hour walk.
Icelandic driving rules differ from British ones in ways that carry fines of up to about five hundred pounds, and the FCDO lists them. KEEP DIPPED HEADLIGHTS ON YEAR ROUND, day and night, which is a legal requirement. Speed limits are lower than in the UK and the DRINK DRIVING LIMIT IS LOWER TOO. Suitable tyres are required, including winter tyres when conditions call for them. A UK photocard licence is valid for thirty days. Beyond the rules, the conditions are the thing: the weather changes fast, distances between towns are far greater than the map suggests, SOME MAIN ROUTES ARE GRAVEL OR DIRT, and some roads and bridges are SINGLE LANE WITH PASSING AREAS. Highland and interior F-roads need four wheel drive, open only for a short part of the summer, and where they cross rivers the instruction is to DRIVE AT FIVE TO TEN KILOMETRES AN HOUR and to understand that RIVER LEVELS CAN CHANGE WITHIN THE SAME DAY. Check the Icelandic Road Administration before every driving day rather than once at the start of the trip.
If you hire a car in Iceland there is one clause worth knowing before you sign, and the FCDO states it rather than hinting at it: THE WEATHER CAN CAUSE DAMAGE TO RENTAL CARS THAT IS NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE. Strong winds are common and throw up sand and ash that strips paintwork, and in its own words BRITISH TOURISTS HAVE HAD TO PAY LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY to repair hire cars damaged that way. Sand and ash protection is sold as a separate product by most Icelandic hire companies and is the one add-on that is usually worth taking. Two related points: BREAKDOWN RECOVERY COSTS IN REMOTE AREAS CAN BE VERY HIGH, and OFF-ROAD DRIVING IS STRICTLY CONTROLLED and illegal outside marked tracks, with large fines, because the vegetation does not recover.
The Studlagil Packing List
A fourteen kilometre walk with no shade, no shelter, no water and no facilities, on uneven ground, in weather that changes inside an hour. This is the most demanding of the Icelandic destinations in this library after the highland sites, and it is demanding because of distance rather than difficulty.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right next-to-skin layer for a five-hour inland walk because the problem here is sweat rather than rain. You warm up within a kilometre, the wind off the highland is cold whenever you stop, and wool manages that cycle without the cold clammy stage a synthetic goes through. It also means one top does the whole east Iceland leg of a ring-road trip.
Merrell Moab 3 waterproof hiking boots, because seven kilometres each way on rough track and then loose rock in a riverbed is boot territory and not trainer territory.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, since there is no shelter of any kind on the east bank and a squall out here lasts twenty minutes and soaks you completely.
An insulated water bottle, which is equipment rather than a nicety: there is nowhere to buy water on either bank and a fourteen kilometre walk needs more than you think.
A LifeStraw water filter if you want to refill from a side stream rather than carry it all, which is practical here because the tributaries are clean and the main river is glacial.
A wide brim UPF 50 sun hat for the exposed track in midsummer, when the sun is up for twenty hours and there is not a tree in the valley.
Not linked and worth packing: SUNGLASSES, which this registry carries no eyewear entry for; TREKKING POLES for the riverbed rock, where the registry's only entry has an unverified product identity and cannot be recommended; SUNSCREEN, absent from the registry entirely; and FOOD, because there is none within an hour.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women at Studlagil
Emergency numbers: 112 reaches police, ambulance, fire and mountain and sea rescue from any phone including a locked mobile, and English is spoken. Download the 112 Iceland app before you travel: it sends your GPS position to the emergency services with one button and logs your location periodically so you can be found, which is the single most useful free thing a visitor to Iceland can do. For non-urgent medical advice the health service line is 1700.
THE HAZARD IS REMOTENESS RATHER THAN TERRAIN, AND IT IS THE REASON TO LODGE A TRAVEL PLAN. Nothing on the east bank walk is technically difficult. What makes it serious is that you are seven kilometres from your car, an hour from a town, in a valley with patchy mobile coverage, on a route where you may see nobody for an hour at a time. A twisted ankle four kilometres in is a different problem here from the same ankle at a roadside waterfall. Tell somebody your plan, carry more water and food than the distance suggests, turn back on time rather than on distance, and do not start the east bank in the afternoon.
AND THE RIVERBED ITSELF NEEDS CARE. The columns are wet, the basalt is slick where it is in the spray, and the rock between them is loose and ankle-sized. The water is glacial, fast and cold enough to incapacitate quickly, and the level can rise when the reservoir upstream spills, so do not wade and do not sit below the line of wet rock.
One sentence on Iceland's safety page deserves to be read twice, because it names the three things that actually hurt visitors and all three are things people come here to look at: GOING TOO CLOSE TO THE OCEAN, CLIFF EDGES AND HOT SPRINGS ARE COMMON CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS IN ICELAND. That is not a generic caution. The ocean here produces sneaker waves, which run far higher up a beach than the sets before them with no visible warning and which have killed people standing on black sand looking out to sea. Cliff edges in Iceland are frequently unfenced, often undercut, and made of material that gives way. Hot springs and mud pots are at or near boiling, the ground around them can be a thin crust over water at that temperature, and the burns are severe. The rule in all three cases is the same and it is unglamorous: keep back further than feels necessary, never turn your back on the sea, and stay on the boardwalks and marked paths in a geothermal area.
Iceland runs a national system for exactly the situation a visitor gets into and the FCDO points at it by name. SAFETRAVEL ICELAND publishes route conditions and hazard guides and LETS YOU LODGE A TRAVEL PLAN, so that if you do not return someone knows where to look, and the FCDO's own instruction is to leave your plans and contact details either with your hotel or on Safe Travel. Alongside it, the Icelandic Met Office carries weather and aurora and seismic alerts, the Road Administration carries road status, and 112 is both the emergency number and an app that transmits your position to the rescue services. None of that costs anything, and in a country where SEARCH AND RESCUE MAY BE LIMITED IN SOME AREAS, which the FCDO says plainly because Iceland is inside the Arctic Circle, using it is the difference between an incident and a statistic.
A UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care in Iceland on the same terms as a resident, which is not the same as free: Iceland charges patient co-payments for primary care and outpatient visits, so expect to pay something and keep the receipts. Travel insurance still matters and matters more here than in most of Europe, because the FCDO notes that EMERGENCY MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AND SEARCH AND RESCUE MAY BE LIMITED IN SOME AREAS and because an evacuation from a remote part of the country is expensive. Tap water is among the best in the world and buying bottled is pointless; the hot tap smells of sulphur because it is geothermal, which is harmless. Pharmacies are apotek.
US State Department travel advisory: the Iceland advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/iceland, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital or clinic: the nearest medical help is in EGILSSTADIR, an hour away, where HEILBRIGDISSTOFNUN AUSTURLANDS runs the regional health institution with an emergency room, and that is the only facility within an hour of the canyon. The nearest full hospital for anything serious is LANDSPITALI in Reykjavik, which from here means an air transfer. There is no first aid, no water and no lavatory on either bank. A pharmacy in Egilsstadir handles minor needs. Bring a UK GHIC or EU EHIC for state care on resident terms, and hold insurance that explicitly covers repatriation and air evacuation, because in east Iceland that is the realistic scenario rather than a theoretical one.
Official health authority: the Directorate of Health of Iceland, is the Directorate of Health
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Reykjavik.
Official tourism authority: the Icelandic Tourist Board, covers the country, and the East Iceland regional board publishes which bank is accessible, whether the Klaustursel track is open and where to park, which is the question this destination turns on
And the authority that decides whether you reach the valley at all is the road administration. VEGAGERDIN publishes Icelandic road conditions section by section in English, and both the eastern passes on Route 1 and the gravel of Route 923 appear on it separately. Check road.is on the morning you drive.
Takeaways
Nobody had seen these columns until 2009. A hydroelectric diversion dropped the river and uncovered them.
Two banks, two completely different trips. West is a twenty-minute viewpoint; east is a fourteen kilometre round trip on foot.
Standard hire cars cannot use the east bank track. That is a walk or a tour, not a drive.
The river level can rise and re-cover the lower columns. Look at photographs from the past week, not at a forecast.
No cafe, no lavatory, no water, no shop, patchy signal. Egilsstadir is an hour away and is the nearest everything.
Solo women safety assessment: Iceland is among the safest countries in the world to travel alone and east Iceland is its emptiest quarter, so the people risk here is close to nil and the terrain and isolation risk is the highest of the four Icelandic destinations in this batch. THERE ARE NO ADVISED-AGAINST AREAS ANYWHERE IN ICELAND. The honest solo calculation is about the east bank: fourteen kilometres, patchy coverage, nobody in sight for stretches, no facilities, and an hour to the nearest health centre. If you are walking it alone, lodge a travel plan with SafeTravel Iceland so somebody knows when you are overdue, download the 112 app which sends your coordinates, carry more water and food than you think, start in the morning, and turn back on a clock rather than on how you feel. If any of that is more than you want, the west bank viewpoint is a twenty-minute walk and gives you the canyon from above. Egilsstadir is a small, easy, unremarkable town to be alone in. 112 reaches police, ambulance and mountain rescue.
Reading On
Studlagil sits in the quietest quarter of the ring road, which this library covers from both directions. An hour east, the Seydisfjordur packing list covers the fjord town with the rainbow street and the ferry to Denmark. North west, the Dettifoss packing list covers the most powerful waterfall in Europe and the Myvatn packing list the volcanic lake with the pseudo-craters. South along the coast, the Hofn packing list covers the langoustine town under Vatnajokull, with the Jokulsarlon packing list and the Skaftafell packing list beyond it. In the north, the Akureyri packing list covers the second city and the Husavik packing list the whale watching. For the country as a whole, the Iceland packing list and the Iceland travel guide for women carry the ring road, the seasons, the costs and the road rules in full. For why wool handles a long walk that makes you sweat into a cold wind, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
