shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2010-01-16 10:29 pm
shewhomust) wrote2010-01-16 10:29 pm
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The cascades of spring
It isn't spring - of course it isn't spring, it isn't necessarily even the thaw. But it's certainly a thaw, and I've been thinking about where all the water will go when it thaws up Weardale, and remembering the waterfalls of Iceland, and how counter-intuitive it seemed at the time that the waterfalls were at their height in the summer. Here I expect the rivers to be low in winter, but in Iceland that's when they fill with meltwater - ah, suddenly this makes sense.
Where did I read that waterfalls are a feature of a young landscape, that with time tthe river wears its valley down to a level? I don't remember, but this too makes sense: throughout our stay in Iceland we were encouraged to stop and admire waterfalls (Wikipedia has a list). I said, when I wrote about our tour of the 'Golden Circle' of popular tourist sites (on which we diverted from the main toute to see Faxafoss on the way to Gullfoss) that these were spectacular, beautiful waterfalls, but that neither of them was my favourite.
Mostly, I don't care for this habit of arranging everything into lists of the 'top 10'. But I felt at the time that I was being plied with superlatives, that every waterfall was the most something: the most beautiful, or the most powerful - Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Europe, in the sense that it has the greatest throughput of water, in other words, it is the wettest waterfall (also the greyest, but that's less of an attraction. Svartifoss has the finest black basalt columns, and was certainly one of my favourites.
But there's nothing quite like having a waterfall to yourself, without the coachloads of tourists - very well, other tourists. Since we were staying the night in Skógafoss, we were able to stroll up to the waterfall in the evening, and enjoy the scenery in peace, and remark how the abundance of spray had carpeted the cliffs with lush green moss, and charmed rainbows out of the evening sun.
Later, in the east, driving towards Egilsstaðir - the coast is so deeply cut with fjords that we were constantly driving from one direction or another towards Egilsstaðir, and never actually visited the town - following the river valley down from the pass, as the water tumbled down a series of cascades, we seized the opportunity to pull of the road and take the little path a hundred yards or so to the falls.
For once, I don't think it scored any superlatives: we'd seen bigger falls, and more spectacular ones. But this was the only one we had completely to ourselves, and the water fell cleanly over the lip of the cliff, and there was a grassy path and wild flowers along the way. I don't even know its name, but this stays with me as my favourite of all the waterfalls we saw in Iceland.
Where did I read that waterfalls are a feature of a young landscape, that with time tthe river wears its valley down to a level? I don't remember, but this too makes sense: throughout our stay in Iceland we were encouraged to stop and admire waterfalls (Wikipedia has a list). I said, when I wrote about our tour of the 'Golden Circle' of popular tourist sites (on which we diverted from the main toute to see Faxafoss on the way to Gullfoss) that these were spectacular, beautiful waterfalls, but that neither of them was my favourite.
Mostly, I don't care for this habit of arranging everything into lists of the 'top 10'. But I felt at the time that I was being plied with superlatives, that every waterfall was the most something: the most beautiful, or the most powerful - Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Europe, in the sense that it has the greatest throughput of water, in other words, it is the wettest waterfall (also the greyest, but that's less of an attraction. Svartifoss has the finest black basalt columns, and was certainly one of my favourites.
But there's nothing quite like having a waterfall to yourself, without the coachloads of tourists - very well, other tourists. Since we were staying the night in Skógafoss, we were able to stroll up to the waterfall in the evening, and enjoy the scenery in peace, and remark how the abundance of spray had carpeted the cliffs with lush green moss, and charmed rainbows out of the evening sun.
Later, in the east, driving towards Egilsstaðir - the coast is so deeply cut with fjords that we were constantly driving from one direction or another towards Egilsstaðir, and never actually visited the town - following the river valley down from the pass, as the water tumbled down a series of cascades, we seized the opportunity to pull of the road and take the little path a hundred yards or so to the falls.
For once, I don't think it scored any superlatives: we'd seen bigger falls, and more spectacular ones. But this was the only one we had completely to ourselves, and the water fell cleanly over the lip of the cliff, and there was a grassy path and wild flowers along the way. I don't even know its name, but this stays with me as my favourite of all the waterfalls we saw in Iceland.
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It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
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