Columnar basalt had probably been uncovered by the enormous flood of the Jokulsa river. The road to get at the starting point is a gravel one, please verify your car is insured for it.

There are many hikes starting from here, we arrived at Rauðhólar, the red hills. One of the first basalt rocks remind us the shape of a mammoth, but all around us there are wonderful basalt rocks, the exagon rocks are absolutly incredible. Jokulsa river flows through the basalt cliffs.

The irregular shaped rocks create echo, so that is not easy to understand the real river flow direction. We suggest you to test the echo here and there, you'll be surprised about that.

The Kirkjan cave is on the path, a nice lava tunnel cave. Be carefull if you enter inside as heavy basalt rocks falls now and than from the ceiling, you will notice them on the floor.

From here the path proceed to Rauðhólar through a big lava wall. Please note perfect basalt polygons! Deep basalt forms larger polygons, due to cooling time (slow cooling means large shapes). Columns are also perpendicular to cooling plane.

Just the time to take pictures of yellow flowers and purple flowers and let's walk to Rauðhólar, with his nice red pinnacles and the red ash on the top. is forbidden to walk on Rauðhólar top, in order to preserve the red color of the old craters.

The way back is on a different path, easier to walk on, among red plants and dwarf birch.