Iceland in Winter: Ice Caves and Other Spectacular Winter Sights

Searching for the northern lights is one of the primary reasons people choose to visit Iceland in the winter and was one of our top three reasons for doing so. However, there's much to see in Iceland in winter besides the northern lights and we saw several examples of this on our second (first full) day in Iceland in early January 2020. These highlights on this special winter day in Iceland are covered in this post.

We stayed overnight at Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon so that we'd have a much shorter (approximately 30 minutes) drive to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon than we would driving from Reykjavik or even Vík. Although the power was out all that night in the area of the hotel and the glacier lagoon (see blog post), it was worth it to be so much closer to the glacier lagoon for the morning ice cave tour.

Well before departing for Iceland, we selected and paid for the "Ice Cave Tour by Vatnajokull Glacier | Departure from Jokulsarlon." As the title implies, this tour required us to meet at the departure point at Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon rather than being picked up in Reykjavik. Although there are tours that will pick people up from Reykjavik for tours of the ice caves in that same glacier, these tours are much longer tours to accommodate the significant travel time in both directions.

Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is amazing to view before and after the ice caves tour.

We joined our tour grip outside of the Jökulsárlón Cafe and boarded a raised truck to head out to the ice caves. This was a relatively easy tour physically and arguably the most challenging physical activity was to jump up into this raised truck. We pulled off the main Ring Road not too far from the glacier lagoon to take a side path up to the glacier and its ice caves. Our tour guide and driver, Fannar, let some air out of the tires of the raised truck and we started on the path.

I appreciated Fannar having the awareness to observe gorgeous nacreous clouds in the cold winter morning sky and pulling over to let us out to see and photograph them.

Nacreous clouds are also called "ice polar stratospheric clouds."

Fannar also explained that these types of clouds are commonly referred to as "mother of pearl" clouds.

After letting air out of the tires of the raised truck to more comfortably traverse the rocky terrain (it was still a rocky ride) and taking photographs of the nacreous clouds, we stopped again to ensure that the provided helmets were fitted correctly and to place the provided crampons over our boots. We then boarded a different truck with chains on its tires to start up the glacier itself.

It was strange to step out of that truck at our destination onto pure ice (the ice was more transparent than the photograph depicts).

Being on the glacier was an interesting experience in and of itself.

A short walk led us to the trail to descend into the blue ice cave. These photograph shows that short trail from the perspective of looking back on it shortly before entering the cave.

Perhaps my biggest motivation for traveling to Iceland in winter was to see the blue ice caves and the color was as spectacular as I had hoped it would be.

Fannar had us exit the blue ice cave on its opposite side and that led to a tremendous view of the glacier!

We had enough time on our tour to make a quick stop at the black ice caves on the way back down from the glacier. Although it was the blue ice caves that I had eagerly anticipated, I appreciated the beauty of these black ice caves as well.

After departing from the black ice caves, Fannar drove us to look at a beautiful glacier lagoon (but not the glacier lagoon).

I believe this glacier lagoon that we stopped at an overlook to view is Fjallsárlón.

Fannar put more air back into the tires and then drove us back on Road 1 and over the bridge again to our origination point at Jökulsárlón.

It made me laugh to see this "no swimming" sign in front of the largely frozen glacier lagoon.

When reading about Iceland in preparation for our trip, Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon was featured perhaps more than any other of Iceland's major natural attractions and it was even more stunning in winter in person.

Fannar had pointed out "Diamond Beach" on our way back to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon and we stopped briefly there because it's just on the other side of the bridge near the parking lot at Café by Jökulsárlón.

The ocean pushes back icebergs coming off the glacier and out of the glacier lagoon and chunks of ice end up on the black sand beach. These mostly clear, large and shiny pieces of ice look like diamonds with the black background.

After the ice cave tunnels, two glacier lagoons, and "Diamond Beach," we filled our rental car with diesel and had lunch at Veitingasala Restaurant (more details available in previous post on dining in Iceland).

We had stayed the previous night at Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon and that made for a shorter drive to the glacier lagoon, but now we needed to make the long drive back to Reykjavik. We weren't in any particular hurry and so we stopped briefly at a few locations where there were turn-outs to take some photographs of the beautiful Iceland winter scenery, including this small waterfall.

We saw another interesting cloud formation near Vik.

We ate dinner at the Valhalla Restaurant and Saga Center (see previous post on dining in Iceland for more details).

We had already had a great day in Iceland that epitomized why one might travel to Iceland in winter, but the night of this first full day in Iceland (second overall day) ended well with a visit to Reykjavik's Flyover Iceland, which will be featured in a future post. Although we did not see northern lights, on this single day in Iceland in winter we got to see nacreous clouds, blue ice caves, black ice caves, two glacier lagoons, and "Diamond Beach" before going to Reykjavik and enjoying Flyover Iceland.