Words and pictures by the Icelandic photographer Ragnheiður Arngrímsdóttir. Check out her fantastic entry to the 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest. She found a hidden gem of a valley the other dayin the Icelandic highlands and was kind enough to share her experience and pictures. Should you ever visit that wonderful place please take care to leave nothing and take only pictures. We want to keep Iceland beautiful!
Subscribe to my newsletter for exclusive discount codes that will give you savings on 150 Iceland tours and travel services.
Subscribe to the Stuck in Iceland newsletterReceive exclusive promo codes for tours, car rental, camper van rental, and outdoor clothing rental. Get occasional updates about new content. I will never give your data to a third party without consent.
Thank you
Jon Heidar, Editor of Stuck in Iceland Travel Magazine
My name is Ragnheiður Arngrímsdóttir and am the mother of 3 great sons. I did work as a pilot for a few years but changed my profession a few years ago and now I am doing what I love, taking pictures.
If I were to tell you my favorite part of Iceland, place, time of year or weather, I could not… I like all of it!
Cold winter mornings, clear sky, everything frozen wherever you look, love it. Bright summer nights, wind blowing with fresh air all around, love it. Ponds all over after, or in rainfall.
You just have to be prepared, wear sensible clothes!
I chose to show you some pictures from a recent trip I took with my father on his Super Cup. He picked me up early in the morning were I was staying with my friends and family close to Akureyri (capital of north Iceland). Sunny weather and he had his mind set to this beautiful little place he wanted to show me, Sönghofsdalur. We landed on a fairly big sandy “road” out in the nowhere, put on our warm clothes and started walking.
At first the landscape was sandy and kind of cold with a beautiful view all the way to Herðubreiðarlind. After a few minutes we were walking on lava with large cracks here and there taking us to this spectacular little valley, Sönghofsdalur. Green grass, small waterfalls, a little river, cliffs and moss. OMG what a place! We walked inside the walley, sat down, ate our lunch and while my father was napping I walked around, feeling and breathing this beautiful place and of course I took some pictures. At one place the water was streaming from underneath this huge rock/cliff. The silence was absolute.
One of Icelands hidden gems I would say. You don´t get there easily and I hope it will stay untouched and clean far in the future.
On the way back to the airplane it started to rain a little but when back in Akureyri it was sunny again and we went blueberry picking for the rest of the day.
