Landslide in Hveradalir geothermal area

Southeast of Reykjavík, about 20 km from the outskirts of the city, you will pass a very active geothermal area, right next to the ring road. We like to make a first stop here when we pick up visitors from the airport to get a first impression of Iceland - because here it steams and hisses and bubbles and smells intensely of sulfur. I like the smell, then I know - I'm really in Iceland! Well, not all visitors react positively to the smell, some even call it stink.

There was a landslide here in July 2024, and the changes around the footpath through the high temperature area really made me realize how sensitive nature is and how quickly all sorts of things can fly in your face - in the ull sense of the word.

Before and after picture

If you drive from Reykjavík over the Hellisheiði plateau towards Hveragerði, you will pass the turnoff to the Hellisheiðarvirkju n power plant. If you drive towards the power plant, after a few meters a small road (378) branches off to the right, which leads to Skíðaskálinn, the ski hut in Hveradalir.

There is a small but very exciting geothermal area here to visit. As I said, we like to make a quick first stop here when we pick up visitors from the airport, and I think it's worth it, even though parking has recently become chargeable.

But you also get something here:

You can walk through the area on special "hovering walkways" and directly experience, smell (it really smells intensely of sulfur!) and feel the geothermal energy. There are information boards along the path about the history of this geothermal area and the peculiarities of such areas.

These walkways hover above the hot earth and have only a few points of contact with the ground. This minimizes interference with nature and the paths can be easily changed, adapted and maintained. And adapting to changing nature is actually necessary here.

There was a landslide here in mid-July 2024, southeast of the ski hut.

It was probably a combination of several factors that triggered the landslide, according to the responsible geologist from Reykjavík Energy on site. A wide stream of gray clay poured down from the hill to the street.

According to the expert from the district heating company, there was probably steam activity in the fumaroles in the ground, which weakened the top layer of the earth, and due to the heavy rainfall over the weekend, the ground was probably so saturated with water that it ultimately collapsed under its own weight. The landslide broke through the top layer of soil, which probably caused the hot spring to boil heavily and the spring clay then sprayed in all directions. The landslide, combined with the outflow of the spring clay, probably did not happen too quickly; it probably took several minutes until the gray mud reached the gravel road - and stopped there. The expert believes this scenario is at least more likely than that a sudden steam explosion in the spring triggering the landslide.

Here you can clearly see how much the place has changed again during the event - whereas previously you could walk along the path for quite some distance, the footbridge now ends further ahead and hovers over an abyss of steam and nothingness that wasn't there before was there.

I have no idea how deep this "nothing" is, but it is certainly steaming and bubbling tremendously around the jetty and in some places the hot gray mud from the fumaroles is splashing onto the slabs, at least when we were there in early August 2024 to look at the landslide.

Incidentally, in August 2024, concrete plans for a planned large development on the Skíðaskáli were also announced:

The ski lodge is to be expanded by 500 m², with a greenhouse, restaurant and a French-style après-ski bar as well as a spa with mud baths. A hotel with 150 rooms is to be built opposite the ski hut. The construction of a swimming lagoon is also planned (on the left at the edge of the picture). And of course corresponding parking spaces for both the lagoon and the hotel.

Sketch of the planned innovations
Source: mbl.is / Alternance

A variety of activities are also planned in the area, including running and cycling trails and ski slopes. By the way, the slopes should be usable all year round; the slope should be covered with appropriate plastic mats for this purpose.

To be honest - I'm not yet sure whether the construction project in this form really makes sense here. Personally, it would be too risky for me to invest money here in such an active high-temperature area, in the middle of hot water vapor, gases and spitting mud pots, where the hot steam sometimes melts the asphalt of the ring road...

PS:

Photo from 2019

If the ski lodge looks familiar to you even though you've never been here - then maybe it's because you've seen the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

The movie is a 2013 American comedy-drama film directed and starring Ben Stiller.

The movie is about the head of the negative archive of a renowned magazine, who regularly loses himself in daydreams and then suddenly finds himself having adventures in real life. In Greenland he has to jump out of a drunk pilot's helicopter into the ice-cold North Atlantic and ends up in a group of sharks, in Iceland he gets caught in the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and finally he hikes through Afghanistan on foot - and most of the scenes from his adventures were filmed in Iceland, regardless of whether they are set in Greenland, Iceland or Afghanistan:

• When Walter Mitty flies to Greenland, he lands in the film at Nuuk airport - the scene was filmed at Hornafjörður domestic airport, 7 km north of Höfn - in Iceland.

• When Walter Mitty drinks beer out of glass boots in a bar in Nuuk on Greenland - the scene was filmed in Stykkishólmur, on Snæfellsnes peninsula, where the ferry to Flatey and the Westfjords leaves.

• When Walter Mitty goes to Stykkishólmur in the film, it was filmed in Seyðisfjörður - well, they had already used Stykkishólmur for Nuuk.

• When Walter Mitty finally cycles through Afghanistan, he passes Skogafoss, on the south coast of Iceland.

• In a scene when the volcanic eruption in Iceland is imminent, Walter Mitty meets an Icelandic family in front of an empty hotel / restaurant and exchanges his rubber doll for a skateboard with one of the children - this scene was filmed here in front of the Skíðaskálinn.

Here are pictures from the movie:

You can definitely recognize the Skíðaskálinn, even if the colors had been slightly changed for the movie and the outbuilding with the decorated roof had been added.

Let's wait and see what things will look like here in a few years...

[Translated from here.]