Waterfall in Tungudalur

Isafjordur, Westfjords (Vestfirðir), Iceland

About Waterfall in Tungudalur


Hiking Distance: almost roadside
Suggested Time:

Date first visited: 2007-06-24
Date last visited: 2007-06-24

Waterfall Latitude: 66.06105
Waterfall Longitude: -23.20542

Waterfall Safety and Common Sense

The waterfall in Tungudalur had an attractive cascade flanked by large fields of purple wildflowers and bush. Given how conspicuous it was, I was surprised at how it didn’t seem to have any formal name to it. In any case, we thought this was a worthwhile attraction especially considering it was very close to the surprisingly busy town of Ísafjörður (the main town of any size in the Westfjords).

There was some infrastructure in the form of signage, trails, and a car park, indicating that this was a fairly well-touristed spot in the Ísafjörður vicinity. We did a couple of short walks to get different views of the falls, including a trail that climbed alongside the steep stream so we could get a closer look at the falls (where it looked like there were some small trees flanking the main drop of the falls itself). However, it seemed like the higher up the hill we went, the less of the waterfall (including the cascades above it) that we were able to see. We saw other people go even higher up the waterfall possibly yielding more views, but we didn’t go beyond the waterfall so we couldn’t say much more about that.

Speaking of trees, when we were walking along the valley of Tungudalur, we noticed that the trail kept going deeper into the valley beyond the waterfall’s stream itself. The trail seemed to go into a forest (skógur), which was confirmed by a signpost indicating Tunguskógur, which would mean here was another place in the country where a grove of trees could be found (something that was rarely seen in Iceland given much of it was de-forested after the Vikings first arrived). Since we didn’t venture very far beyond the waterfall and onto this trail, we can’t say more about what was beyond.

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We got here from Ísafjörður by going 3km west of town on Route 61 to the turnoff for Tungudalur. From there, we continued on the spur road to a car park area where there was already view of the falls as well as some walking tracks getting closer to it.

Coming from the other direction from the tunnel entering Ísafjörður, the tunnel opened up into Tungudalur valley. Once the route 60 joined with the route 631, turn left onto route 631 then drive a short distance until you see the signposted turnoff for Tungudalur. Turn left onto the access road leading to car park.

Just to give you an idea of the context of Ísafjörður versus the major towns of Iceland, this town was 569km (over 6.5 hours drive) west of Akureyri and 445km (about 5.5 hours drive) north of Reykjavik.

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Angled view of the falls


Fixated direct view of the falls

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Tagged with: tungudalur, isafjordur, tunguskogur, forest, iceland, waterfall, westfjords, vestfirdir, camping



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