Veidivotn Lakes

Region: Highland
Coordinates: 64.2089° N 18.7964° W

Veidivotn Lakes

This part of the country is among the youngest (1477) and wildest pearls of the central highlands. It includes about 50 lakes of various sizes, many of which are crater lakes. The craters and lakes lie in two rows. Most of the lakes are fed and discharged underground because of the lava fields and porous scoria.

To get into the area, you must ford the small river between the two Fossvotn lakes. The northernmost lakes are called Hraunvotn. On some of the lakes, you can find small, beautiful, sensitive and variegated oases. You can catch two-to-six-pound Brown Trout in most of these lakes. Some people have caught ten-pounders!
Farmers, who hold the fishing rights, net some of them regularly late in summer to increase the average size of the fish and for commercial purposes. They released Lake Char fries into some of the lakes in the past and soon it started popping up all over and its number is constantly increasing.

In 1918 the volcano Katla devastated the area with its ashes. There was hardly any vegetation left and the catch diminished abruptly for years on end. Nature recovered amazingly quickly. The road to the area lies to the east from the Sprengisandur route and ends by the tourist huts in Jokulheimar at the western edge of the icecap Vatnajökull. There is another hut on one of the lakes, Tjaldvatn, where the vegetation is lush. On the whole, the lake area is among the most beautiful in the country.

Hiking. This is an ideal hiking area with somewhat lunar landscapes. Patches of vegetation appear everywhere near the crater lakes and the streams between some of them, and it is possible to spend a few days in the mountain huts on lake Tjaldvatn.

For information on road conditions, see https://www.vegagerdin.is/en or call the Road Administration Information Line (+354) 1777

Veidivotn in Icelandic