Day 9: Reykjadalur thermal hot spring river.

Overview. Unlike all previous days, when we tried to do a lot of things and visit a lot of places (Day 8 being the most extreme example of this), today, we did one thing - hiked the 3km trail up to Reykjadalur - the thermal hot spring river - and spent two hours lying down in its hot waters.

A map showing the trail to Reykjadulur hot springs.

Weather.  Collaborated. Nice and sunny, in fact, best day in Reykjavik.  It was about 14-16 degrees Celcius in Reykjavik and at the Reykjadulur parking lot, but up on the trail it felt warmer at times. It was nice and cool at the river site itself, which helped a lot, given how hot the water was.

Up the Reykjadalur trail: the sun is out, the sky is partially cloudy.

Reykjadalur.  Reykjadalur is a hot river fed by geothermal waters, that flows just outside  the village of Hveragerdi - only a 30minute drive from our house in Reykjavik.  It is a popular attraction. When we arrived to the parking lot, we thought it was full - but parked cars spilled over onto a large chunk of the road leading to the lot when we left.

View from the parking lot. We had to climb to the top of that ridge, and then some.

Reykjadlur: starting point of the trail has some geothermal activity going on.

The actual chunk of the river accessible for bathing is three kilometers up the trail, and "up" is the operative word here. The first kilometer is a very steep climb.  I made a huge mistake of not pausing to catch breath somewhere midway along the climb, when I started getting out of breath. By the time I finally stopped - a couple hundred meters from the end of the climb - I was barely functioning - no breath, heart rate topping 200, and left leg, really tired of compensating for the bum right knee, which I try not to put too much weight on when climbing or going up the stairs.

Reykjadalur valley. A waterfall taking the Reykjadalur river a few notches down into  a canyon.

The hike was fine after one reached the top of the climb at the end of the first kilometer - from there, it's relatively modest ups and downs for the remaining two km. Walking back was more or less a breeze, although one has to be very careful descending - the road is quite steep, and one wrong step and you can twist an ankle.

View from near the top of the trail.

The final approach to the "beach" goes through a very active geothermal area, frequented by sheep, who apparently like it hot even in the summer, and despite a really thick coat of wool. 

Reykjadalur valley. Sheep like it hot.

At one point on the path, the geothermal pool next to the path emits so much steam smelling of sulfur, that it is impossible to see where one is going. 

Reykjadalur Valley: a lot of geothermal activity.

Reykjadalur valley: steam covering the path.

But once we got past the geothermal pools, there was the hot spring part of the river. It goes for about 200 meters I think.

Reykjadalur river hot springs area. A panoramic view. To the left (upstream) the water is hot. To the right (downstream), the water is somewhat more tolerable. The confluence with a small cold stream is at the  bottom right.

Upstream, the water is scalding hot. Olga chose to go there first because there were fewer people there. Turned out, there were fewer people for a reason - very few people can stand water that is scalding. 

Reykjadalur river hot springs. The hotter part of the river. We camped across (on the other side of the river) from the changing booth (so to say) in the top left corner.

After some attempts to establish ourselves in the hot part of the river, I started blacking out, and decided to move downstream.

Reykjadalur river hot springs. The cooler (downstream) side.

There I found a place where a small cold brook joined the hot river. At their confluence, the waters were mixing in complex patterns (that, among other things depended heavily on whether there were human bodies in the way) and created a wonderful mix of really cold, and fairly warm water - often times withing centimeters of each other. Olga and I spent about an hour and a half in that one spot until a large group of people figured it out as well and overcrowded us.  

Reykjadalur river hot springs. The location where we spent most of the time (and the people who eventually "chased us" from it).  I was mostly at the confluence on the right side, and Olga -- on the left side, where the man is sitting.  The water where the closest to us dude is sitting is really-really cold.

This trip featured only three of us - the older kid stayed home. The younger kid hiked well, and joined us in the water for about 15 minutes, after which he went back to guard our stuff and promptly fell asleep.  At 2:30 pm we decided to head back, packed, took some pictures and went back.

On the way back: Reykjadalur river flowing down a canyon.

As mentioned, the way back was much easier and only require careful stepping during the final descent.

Reykjavik Old Harbor. Visited it looking for ice cream.

Driving.  105 kilometers according to the odometer, including some evening driving around Reykjavik.

Walking.  16,070 steps according to Google Fit. Plus a few hundred at the hot springs when I was walking without the phone in the pocket.  About 12 thousand steps were in Reykjadalur, the remainder, downtown Reykjavik.

Plans for Day 10.  I have no idea. Our last full day in Iceland. I know we will be packing at some point.