It’s quite a ride to get to Askja. 3 hours by car (real SUV with significant clearance required) and 40 min. walk through the caldera: Here and there a bit of snow and where it’s gone the ground is warm – so you know that you are on a vulcano. Once you reach the Viti crater what you see is breathtaking.
First you automatically look down into the crater and the turquoise lake. Looking up you see mountains on the horizon. But it’s somewhat unreal. Something is odd. While you try to figure out what you actually see, you realize that there is another lake totally calm mirroring the mountains with the real mountains and the mirror separated by some light fog. The shot above captures this moment.
From a bit further up one has a nice overview over the caldera and the two lakes. The lake is with 200 m one of the deepest in Iceland. The panoramic shot below shows that the lake – which is a springwater filled up caldera in itself – is only a small part of the overall 45 m2 caldera.
Down at the Öskjuvatn lake the mirroring continues on this calm day allowing for a few surreal shots at this surreal place.
structures & shapes 