Iceland

Whispers of Sleipnir: The Horseshoe Canyon of Ásbyrgi

Standing amidst the vertiginous basalt walls where Norse legend and geological drama collide in Iceland’s wild north.

August 2018

The wind drops to a mere sigh the moment you step within the towering 100-metre cliffs of the Diamond Circle’s greatest anomaly. While the rest of the Vatnajökull National Park feels raw and exposed, Ásbyrgi is a cathedral of stillness. Here, the birch woodland clings to the canyon floor, a rare emerald carpet against the harsh, iron-grey bedrock that defines the Icelandic interior. According to the sagas, this massive horseshoe was stamped into the earth by the hoof of Odin’s eight-legged steed, Sleipnir. Walking the trail toward the inner pond, Botnstjörn, it is impossible to shake the sense of ancient weight. The reflections of the sheer rock faces in the jade-green waters are so perfect they feel like a folding of reality, a silent sanctuary tucked far away from the thunder of the nearby Arctic coastline. To wander through the rowan and willow trees is to experience a different side of the North—not the violent surge of glacial rivers, but a quiet, sheltered sanctuary. It is a place for slow footsteps and craned necks, looking up at the fulmars nesting on cliff ledges that look like petrified stone waves.