Falljökull Advanced Glacier Hike: Five Hours, Three on the Ice

Three Hours Changes the Walk

Ninety minutes on ice gets you onto a glacier. Three hours gets you up it. The advanced route climbs toward the icefall, where the ice bends over the slope and splits into the shapes that make photographs look unreal.

At that height Skaftafell National Park opens out below you: the black outwash plain running to the sea, the moraine ridges, and Hvannadalshnúkur at 2,110 m on the caldera rim behind. The easy hike turns around before any of it.

What the Ratings Say

This tour holds 4.8 out of 5 from 1,149 reviews, with guides rated 4.9 and value for money 4.6. Read the gap the way regulars do: people rate the person who took them higher than the ticket.

The recurring criticism is about grouping. Ten people can hold very different paces, and the guide sets the speed for the slowest. Reviewers who wanted a harder day sometimes got a slower one.

The Upper Route

The features get bigger with height. What follows is what guides stop at on a normal day, weather and ice allowing.

• The crevasse field, where splits widen from step-over to walk-around
• Moulins, loud in summer with meltwater still draining through them
• The icefall itself, blocks and seracs where the ice breaks over the slope
• Ash bands from the 1362 and 1727 Öræfajökull eruptions in the white
• The view back over Skaftafell National Park to the sea
• Small ice tunnels in winter, when the meltwater stops running

The icefall, and why it is the reason to come

Above the first bench the glacier steepens over a step in the bedrock and shatters into blocks the size of rooms. That is the icefall, and it is a different landscape from the rolling tongue below: seracs leaning at angles, crevasses you walk beside rather than over, and meltwater running audibly under the surface in summer.

Route-finding here is real work rather than following a line of footprints. Guides re-scout the way through every few days because the ice moves, which is why two groups a week apart do not walk the same path.

What that gives you, beyond the scenery, is a sense of the glacier as something in motion. On the easy hike the ice feels like ground. Up here it feels like weather that happens to be solid.

The Tail of the List Is the Exclusions

GetYourGuide prints inclusions and exclusions in one column on this tour, which trips people up. Hotel pickup and food are not part of the ticket.

Food, water and the five-hour body clock

Nothing edible is included and there is nowhere to buy anything after the visitor centre. Five hours on ice in cold air burns more than people expect, and the group stops once, briefly, somewhere sheltered.

Carry a litre of water and something you can eat with gloves on. Bars freeze harder than you think in February; a sandwich in a jacket pocket stays soft. Nobody is turned back for arriving hungry, but the last hour is the best hour and it goes badly on an empty stomach.

Fitness and Age

Minimum age is 12. No climbing experience is needed, but three hours on crampons with gradient asks more of your legs than a flat walk of the same length.

Reviewers who describe themselves as active still finish it winded. One hiked it 27 weeks pregnant and said the same: doable, tiring, worth it. If that reads as a warning rather than a boast, book the three-hour easy hike instead.

Weather and Cancellation

Guides cancel for high wind, heavy rain and lightning near the ridge, and the operator refunds in full when they do. Your own free cancellation runs to 24 hours before departure.

Cloud on the icefall is common and does not stop the tour. Blue ice reads better under flat light than under hard sun, so an overcast morning is no reason to move your booking.

How much harder the advanced route is

Five hours against three, with the difference spent climbing rather than walking. You gain height into the icefall where the glacier breaks over the bedrock, which means steeper crampon work, real crevasses either side of the route and a guide who is route-finding rather than following a line.

Fitness rather than skill is the gate. If you can walk uphill for an hour without stopping and you are comfortable on uneven ground, you can do this. Nobody needs previous ice experience, and the technique is taught at the bottom.

What the numbers say

4.8 from 1,149 ratings is the highest score on this glacier at any price, and unusually for a harder product the reviews rarely mention difficulty. What they mention is the scenery above the first bench, which the easy hike never reaches, and guides who keep a group of twelve moving without anyone feeling rushed.

The honest caveat is that the last hour is the best hour, so a group that turns back early loses the part they paid for. Eat before you arrive and carry water.

Gear, booking and the weather

Crampons, harness, helmet and axe are included; waterproof boots above the ankle are required and hired at the base. Nothing is charged at booking and cancellation is free 24 hours out.

Wind is what cancels this rather than cold, and higher ground means the threshold is lower than on the easy route. If the forecast is marginal the operator will often run the shorter hike instead and refund the difference, which is worth asking about rather than assuming.

A Quick Check

This is the best value on the glacier if your legs are up to it, and the wrong ticket if they are not.

• Regular hill walkers who want the icefall rather than a taste of ice
• Photographers: the upper route holds the crevasses and the long view
• Anyone weighing $105 against $162 who has the full morning free
• Travellers aged 12 and up, in a group capped at ten
• Not for you with younger children, or with a Jökulsárlón booking the same afternoon

How to know you are ready for the five-hour version

Three questions answer it. Can you walk uphill for an hour without needing a long stop? Are you comfortable on uneven ground where a stumble matters? And do you actually want five hours outside rather than three?

None of it is technical. Crampon work is taught at the ice edge and the guide sets the pace to the group. What changes higher up is exposure: crevasses beside the route, wind with nothing to break it, and a turnaround point set by conditions rather than by the clock.

People who have done a glacier walk elsewhere and found it too easy are the core audience here, along with photographers, who get the icefall in the light rather than a rolling white surface.