Lagarfljót Lake

About Lagarfljót Lake

Lagarfljót is a long, milky glacial lake in East Iceland, and locals will tell you something large lives in it. The lake stretches southwest from Egilsstaðir for roughly 25 km and reaches 112 m at its deepest point. That depth, plus water too silty to see into, is a big part of why the Lagarfljót worm story has lasted so long.

The legend goes back centuries. An entry for 1345 in the Icelandic Annals records a strange sighting on the lake, and a folktale collected in the 1800s tells of a girl who kept a small worm on a gold ring until it grew into a serpent and she threw it into the water. In 2012, Icelandic TV aired a video said to show the Lagarfljót monster swimming, and a local truth committee later declined to rule it out. Skeptics blame drifting debris and rising gas bubbles.

The lake you see today is murkier than it was a generation ago. Since the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project began diverting a second glacial river into Lagarfljót in the mid-2000s, its sediment load has risen sharply, which gives the water its flat, gray-brown color.

Egilsstaðir sits on the north end of Lake Lagarfljót, and the Ring Road crosses it on a bridge into Fellabær, so most Ring Road trips pass right by. It's about three hours' drive east of Akureyri. To see more than the bridge view, follow Route 931 around the lake, a loop of roughly 70 km from Egilsstaðir.

On the east shore, the road runs through Hallormsstaðaskógur, Iceland's largest forest, with the Atlavík campsite right on the water. The west side leads to the trailhead for Hengifoss, a 128 m waterfall. Allow two to three hours for the loop with a few stops, or half a day if you hike to Hengifoss. Summer is the easiest time to go, and in winter you should check road.is before driving the loop.