Parking
Heinabergslón car park — the official E1 starting point. Plan the remote Heinaberg access drive in advance and carry offline navigation.
Overview
About Heinabergslón Lagoon Trail
Heinaberg (the park's E1 circle route) starts and finishes at Heinabergslón car park, then loops through the Heinaberg area. Vatnajökull National Park lists the route as 6 km (about 3.7 miles), 3–4 hours, challenging, with 145 m of elevation gain. The official GPS track measures approximately 5.78 km, which is consistent with the park's rounded visitor distance.
Why go
- Complete official loop with a verified GPS track from Heinabergslón car park
- Bólstaðafoss waterfall, Heinabergsjökull glacier, and basalt-column scenery
- Remote, low-crowd landscape in the Heinaberg area
Heads up
- Challenging route on rough natural terrain with changeable weather
- Remote access and several nearby Heinaberg hikes can be easy to confuse; verify the route ID and distance
- The park lists separate connected routes with river hazards; do not extend this loop without current route information
Map & elevation
The route
Loading the Vatnajökull map
Full mapElevation69–128 m
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
1 active Vatnajökull alert
- ClosureFosshvammur permanently closed at DettifossFosshvammur at Dettifoss is permanently closed to all traffic; do not enter.Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Vatnajökull Tour Guide
Your drive to Heinabergslón Lagoon Trail, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Vatnajökull National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
More stories near here in the app
- Grímsvötn: The Volcano Hidden Under the Ice
- Hjallanes Trailhead and the Skálafellsjökull Glacier View
- 102 audio storiesacross Vatnajökull’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Grey Seal, Harbor Seal, Caribou, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 16 trails, 72 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking Heinabergslón Lagoon Trail
Route and highlightsThis is a complete loop, not a doubled out-and-back.
This is a complete loop, not a doubled out-and-back. The official route returns to the car park and passes the Heinaberg area's Bólstaðafoss waterfall, Heinabergsjökull glacier, and basalt columns. The lagoon is the access point and trailhead; the loop's destination is the Heinaberg landscape rather than a separate shoreline viewpoint route.
Access and trailheadStart at Heinabergslón car park, the official starting point for E1.
Start at Heinabergslón car park, the official starting point for E1. This is a remote Heinaberg access area, so plan the drive and navigation before leaving the main road. Use the signed/official route track and carry an offline map because weather and visibility can change quickly in southeast Iceland.
Difficulty and safetyThe national park rates this circle challenging.
The national park rates this circle challenging. Expect rough natural terrain and a sustained outing despite the modest distance. Bring weatherproof layers, water, and navigation, and follow the marked route rather than improvising across glacial terrain. Heinaberg has several connected hikes with different endpoints and hazards: the park separately warns about river crossings on some of those routes, including an unbridged Hólmsá section. Those warnings do not turn this E1 circle into the separate river routes.
Nearby contextThe Heinaberg area also has shorter and longer connected routes.
The Heinaberg area also has shorter and longer connected routes. Confirm the route ID and distance before leaving the car park so a point-to-point Heinaberg hike is not mistaken for this 6 km circle.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Vatnajökull
22 sightingsGrey SealMost seen around 5 AMSighting map
258 sightingsHarbor SealMost seen around 11 AMSighting map
184 sightingsCaribouMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
62 sightingsArctic FoxMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
168 sightingsWhooper SwanMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
68 sightingsAtlantic PuffinMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Vatnajökull. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
