Mo1d ago

Morning Light

Low southern sunlight strikes the gnarled face of the mountain, throwing shadows.

Ketillaugarfjall, a 668 metre (1102 feet) tall batholith in Sveitarfélagið Hornafjörður, south-eastern Iceland.

#TravelThursday #Iceland2025 #LandscapePhotography #Photography #Iceland

Show threadSveinn í Felli1d ago

@mo Peculiar rock formations, even on an Icelandic scale, because these are amongst the oldest rocks in the country.

"According to legend, a woman named Ketillaug disappeared into the mountain carrying a kettle full of gold."

Well, even though Ketillaug exists as a Norse name, I'd rather bet the name comes from one of the warm springs in the vicinity, probably one with a form of a kettle. After all, this area has been exploited for quite some time to heat the neighboring town of Höfn.

Show threadMo
@sv1
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Hoffell isn't far away, and IIRC there's a hotpot nearby.
Mar 26 at 10:42amWeb
Show threadSveinn í Felli23h ago
@mo The drilling for hot water at Hoffell happened only ~20yrs ago, before that there were sources in the Nes-area, SW of the Ketillaugarfjall, where Höfn got their geothermal water. As often happens, drilling and pumping leads to disappearing of natural sources on surface, which is the case here.
But just behind Ketillaugarfjall (to the right on your photo) there's a spectacular gully colored by rhyolitic rocks and old geothermal activity, which indicates the presence of an old volcanic center.