Iceland
Ásbyrgi Canyon
A vast horseshoe of skyscraper cliffs sheltering a birch forest that hums with birdsong.
The cliffs rise vertically — a hundred metres of basalt forming a perfect horseshoe around a birch forest so dense it hums with birdsong. Ásbyrgi tricks the senses: you feel simultaneously enclosed by the walls and exposed to something vast overhead.
Ásbyrgi is a horseshoe-shaped canyon 3.5 kilometres long and over a kilometre wide, carved by catastrophic glacial floods of the Jökulsá á Fjöllum thousands of years ago. Norse mythology tells it differently: the canyon is a hoofprint of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, stamped into the earth mid-ride. The floor holds one of Iceland's rare birch woodlands — a green canopy against the bare plateau above the rim — and at the southern end the still pond of Botnstjörn mirrors the cliffs. Ásbyrgi is the northern gateway of the Jökulsárgljúfur canyon system in Vatnajökull National Park, which runs south to Dettifoss, Europe's most powerful waterfall.
Family
A flat canyon floor, shaded birch trails and a duck-friendly pond make Ásbyrgi one of Iceland's most accessible natural wonders — and the Sleipnir story captivates children.
Solo
The birch forest gives a rare sense of enclosure in Iceland's open landscapes. Walk to the far end, sit by Botnstjörn and let the walls shut everything out.
- Norse myth reads the horseshoe as the hoofprint of Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir.
- A rare birch forest thrives beneath hundred-metre basalt walls.
- Botnstjörn pond at the canyon's closed end mirrors the cliffs on still days.
- The canyon opens the Jökulsárgljúfur system, running south to Dettifoss.
A local-inspired plate and a northern craft beer at Veggur on road 862, either side of the trails.
A picnic carried deep into the birch woods, eaten beneath the hundred-metre walls.
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