Svartifoss (Black Fall) is a tall waterfall on the southern
coast of Iceland in Skaftafell National Park. The waterfall is surrounded by dark lava hexagonal columns,
which is where the waterfall name comes from. Other famous columnar jointing formations are Giant’s
Causeway in Ireland, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and Staffa, Scotland (thanks to
Wikipedia for the info on these other locations). The water is run off from the Hvannadalshnukur glacier,
which is the largest glacier on Iceland.
From the visitor’s center, it takes about an hour to walk to this location. We cheated and took the car about half way up the mountain. We had a 30-minute hike from the car park we used. It was an interesting narrow road going up the mountain with about eight hairpin turns with room for one car at a time. Thankfully we didn’t pass anyone going up or down.