Svinafellsjokull
Svinafellsjokull
Park and walk 100m to a viewpoint over the glacier tongue but be aware that walking beyond the gate may be risky due to rock falls.
You can get a good view of the glacier tongue by taking the path from the car park that follows the moraines and climbs to a viewpoint.
The small lagoon in front of the glacier has formed in the last 10 years as the glacier accelerates its retreat. Most of Iceland’s glaciers are retreating quite quickly; they reached their furthest point of advance at the end of the 19th century. At that time Svinafellsjokull was just 100m from the farm at Svinafell. Iceland’s glaciers and ice caps are not Ice Age remnants.
After the end of the last cold phase of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, they had almost completely melted away but began to form again around 3000 years ago.