Bláhnúkur from Landmannalaugar

From the car park by the hut walk south across the gravel flats and cross the stream Brennisteinsöldukvísl on the footbridge at the mouth of Grænagil. Pick up the clear marked path that zigzags up the steep north-east face of Bláhnúkur to the summit, 945 m, and return the same way. From the top you look over the coloured rhyolite hills of the Fjallabak reserve and the black lava of Laugahraun.

It is 4.7 km there and back with 343 m of ascent; allow about 2½ hours. The grade is Hard: steep zigzags on loose gravel and scree.

The slopes are slippery when wet or icy, and Ferðamálastofa lists rockfall, strong wind and ice among the hazards; the path is usually clear only from mid-June into October, and the weather at this height can turn wintry in any month. A path also goes down the west side to Grænagil, but Ferðamálastofa calls it unmarked, so this walk comes back the way it went.

Landmannalaugar is reached only by highland roads, open in summer. The road from Sigalda has no unbridged rivers, but F224, the last stretch, is for four-wheel drives and fords two streams before the hut; smaller 4x4s park at P1, north of the fords, and walk over the footbridge. The summer buses stopped on 20 September.

Route drawn by Global Adventurer along OpenStreetMap paths (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), with figures worked out from it. Check the forecast and the ground on the day: paths change.