Iceland: The Golden Circle Part 2 - Geysir

Brúrá River

The sun never really seems to move very much in the sky at this time of year. It sits in the south part of the sky and never quite reaches overhead, casting long shadows on the land. We left Þingvellir and headed east towards Geysir with a brief, and very buggy, stop at the Brúrá river. The blue falls of Brúráfoss were upstream, but we skipped it in favor of the geyser basin.

From the broad and fertile plains beyond the road for Bruarfoss, rose a gently sloping mountain and, strangely enough, a small forest of birch and a handful of pines. Only about 2% of the country is covered in forests. Most of the historic forests were razed by Vikings for grazing and structures, so finding forests now is rather rare. Our morning sunshine had turned into a steady rain as we got closer to the mountain. A bustle of buses and cars near a large visitor center signaled that we had arrived at Geysir. Inside the broad, red-roofed building was a visitor center (with the same souvenirs that we had seen everywhere else), an informational display, a restaurant, and a cafeteria. We opted for the cafeteria for quicker service. Lunch consisted of a kjötsúpa (keert-soupa) of lamb and, once again, burgers. This place was exceedingly expensive: $184 for four people. We should have had PB&J’s in the parking lot. The lamb soup was good, but certainly not for the price we paid.

Strokkur

The rain abated and we walked across the street to the geothermal field. Several fumaroles, mudpots, and geysers are present here. The main attraction is Geysir, the king of all geysers. The name derives from the verb geysa, which means “to rush forth furiously, to burst out with violence”. A fitting term then for a feature that shoots boiling hot water a hundred feet in the air.

“When we think of the geysers of New Zealand, the Yellowstone National Park, or any place in Iceland we must remember that they took this name from Geysir. There is only one Geysir.” notes W. S. C. Russell.

Geysir is largely inactive, however it’s younger brother, Strokkur erupts about every 8-10 minutes. My time at Old Faithful in Yellowstone told me that the time to eruption is inversely correlated to the number of people standing around. Not a lot of people? You just missed an eruption. Lots of people? Buckle up because it’s about to happen. We found a good spot downhill from the geyser and waited for a few minutes. The eruption was about 60 feet high and a cool, sulfur-smelling mist came drifting down on us. We watched several eruptions here, each one bigger and more exciting than the last. The thermal pool from which Strokkur erupts boiled and bubbled. I particularly enjoyed watching the initial gas release from an eruption force the water into a dome before bursting.

Geysir, the grandad of them all.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Yellowstone’s geothermal areas. It’s a landscape of low-rolling hills, mountains, small copses of trees interrupted by areas of bare white ground stained rusty-red. The gray rain gave way to blue skies and white clouds. The cool air temperature, the sound of the geyser erupting, and the familiar landscape took me back to my first time in Yellowstone fifteen years earlier. If you had blindfolded me and put me there at Strokkur I would have mistaken it for Norris or the Upper Geyser Basin.

Daisy Geyser, Yellowstone. 2010.

Strokkur, Geysir. 2025

We walked up the hill to see a small boiling pool and then went to find Geysir. Steam drifted off an almost still pool, slowly spilling down the sides of a large, tan-brown cone. There are many geyser fields around the world, but Yellowstone, Geysir, and the Taupō volcanic zone have the five largest. Steamboat at Yellowstone is number 1 (but erupts are irregular intervals), Geysir (dormant) is number 2, Old Faithful gets the bronze medal in third, Strokkur is fourth, and Pohutu in New Zealand rounds out the group. I’ve visited four of these now, so I guess I need to plan a trip to New Zealand at some point.

On our way out, we watched Strokkur erupt four times within just a few minutes. A good farewell.