Dettifoss

Turbid water, raging currents, a deafening roar. Incredible!

About ten minutes from the car park, the source of the roar comes into view: Dettifoss. It is an enormous waterfall, around 45 meters high and 100 meters wide, with billowing spray and tremendous force. I changed lenses in that spray; a convenience-store plastic bag came in very handy! The guide advised against it, but I really wanted a telephoto shot. The red dot at the upper left of the first photograph is a person, giving a sense of scale. Although it is a color photograph, the black-and-white contrast seems to convey the waterfall's power. For the second photograph, I changed lenses again and used a wider angle to show its breadth.

From the frontal viewpoint, we retraced our steps a little and walked north for about ten minutes to higher ground overlooking the entire waterfall. The third photograph was taken there. The spot where we had stood close to the falls is also visible.

Dettifoss is on the Jökulsá á Fjöllum, a river flowing from the enormous Vatnajökull ice cap. Its water is gray-brown with fine rock flour ground by the glacier and large amounts of sediment. Erosion by this sediment-laden water is said to make the waterfall retreat by around 50 centimeters a year. I was surprised that solid rock could be worn back so quickly.

While gathering information for this travelogue, I learned that Dettifoss appears in the opening of Prometheus. That opening? I went back and watched it. It is immediately recognizable: the waterfall appears much as it really is, rather than as a visual-effects creation. If I remember correctly, an alien "Engineer" releases his DNA into the falls, leading to the origin of life on Earth and ultimately humanity… But life began billions of years ago, and Dettifoss did not even look like this ten thousand years ago, did it? Then again, the film never claims the location is Dettifoss. It is being used to represent primordial Earth, so raising such objections is rather missing the point. Looking at my photographs again after that train of thought, the falls have enough power to deserve the title "the waterfall of life's beginnings."

South of Dettifoss lies Selfoss, connected by a trail of about ten minutes each way. Although the ground was fairly level, slippery rocks made the walk awkward.

Selfoss is upstream of Dettifoss. It is only about ten meters high, but broad, with many separate streams falling gracefully. Such a contrast between two waterfalls so close together is fascinating.

Here too, the vertical lines of columnar joints are clearly visible in the rock walls.

In 2016 we visited only Dettifoss and Selfoss, but apparently a succession of waterfalls lies along the Jökulsá á Fjöllum gorge, beginning with Selfoss upstream. If I ever make a more leisurely trip, I would like to follow them too.