Day 77. 15th September. Langisjór, Highlands, Iceland.

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When I woke up early in the morning, before dawn, it had snowed.   I still had to drive back out but before that I took time to appreciate the serene beauty of this remote lake and its snowclad mountains.

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I had parked for the night beside the only building on the lake.  This is a house for rent.  There is sleeping bag accomodation for four on beds and two on a couch.  It has running water and a toilet and renting it comes with a licence to fish for trout in the lake.

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Langisjór is a deep glacial lake twenty kilometres long and up to two kilometres wide and 75 metres deep.  No mention of it is known before the late nineteenth century, which attests to its remoteness and was why I wanted to visit it.

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The lake’s name means Long Sea and because of the surrounding mountains, the lake can’t be seen until it is reached.

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Langisjór’s outlet is at the other end of the lake, near the glacier and about three kilometres from the inner edges of the lake.  It goes out through Útfall as a waterfall into Skaftá, which feeds into the lakes, rivers and marshes of Skaftárhreppur, in the next valley parallel south.

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A ridge caught in the light of dawn.

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There were plans five to ten years ago for Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s national electric company, to exploit this area for hydroelectric power.  After an intense national debate, those proposals were defeated and plans are underway to make Langisjór and its surrounding area a part of Vatnajökull National Park .

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