Dettifoss Map and Orientation

Dettifoss is not a single point you drive to. It is one of three waterfalls on a short stretch of one river, in a canyon with a road down each side that never meet. This page is the orientation nobody gives you at the car park.

What sits where, upstream to downstream

Selfoss

Ten metres high and about a kilometre upstream of Dettifoss, signposted at 0.6 kilometres from the west-side junction. It is wide rather than tall: a horseshoe of many separate strands spilling off stepped basalt on both banks. The two are easy to confuse in photographs and frequently are.

Dettifoss

The reason you came. A hundred metres wide, forty-four metres down, carrying an average of 193 cubic metres a second. Viewpoints on both rims; the west one is above and across, the east one is head-on.

Hafragilsfoss

Hafragilsfoss is twenty-seven metres, about two kilometres downstream and deeper into the canyon. You see it from a rim viewpoint on the east side, which is why most visitors never see it at all — that road is shut for over half the year.

Ásbyrgi

Thirty-two kilometres downstream by the canyon trail, or an hour and a half by road. A horseshoe canyon 3.5 kilometres long with cliffs up to a hundred metres, cut by the same floods that made everything else here.

Distances at a glance

The two car parks

The west car park

At the end of Route 862, the larger of the two, and the one with toilets. Every guided departure listed uses it. From here the marked routes are D1 to Dettifoss, D2 continuing to Selfoss, and D3, which the park flags as steep with a risk of falling rock.

The east car park

At the end of Route 864, smaller, with no facilities, and reachable only between about late May and the first autumn snow. It is closer to the falls than the west one and puts you level with the lip.

Why the two rims do not connect

There is no bridge at Dettifoss. The canyon is 44 metres deep at the falls and carries the full flow of the Jökulsá á Fjöllum, and nothing spans it there. To get from one viewpoint to the other you drive right round: north to Route 85 and back down, or south to Route 1 and back up, about two and a half hours either way. Standing on the west rim looking at people on the east rim, that is not obvious. Plan the day around one rim, and treat the other as a separate trip.

Where Dettifoss sits on the Diamond Circle

Dettifoss is one of the five stops on the Diamond Circle, the 250-kilometre route designated in 2020 that links Goðafoss, Lake Mývatn, Dettifoss, Ásbyrgi and Húsavík. On a clockwise day from Akureyri it is usually the third or fourth stop, arriving somewhere around midday. That timing matters more than it sounds: it is when the light is flattest and the west-side viewpoint is busiest.

The map

For which road to take and when, see roads and access. For the neighbours in detail, what is near Dettifoss. To compare the guided options, Dettifoss Tours.