Karl og Kerling
Karl og Kerling is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland — about 535 km from Reykjavik and reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Shoot it during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography, then use the GPS coordinates, parking notes, and nearby waypoints below to fold this stop into a longer photography route.
Overview
Karl og Kerling ('Old Man' and 'Old Woman'), two rock pillars, believed to be petrified trolls.
As a photography stop, Karl og Kerling is a landscape in North Iceland, roughly 535 km from Reykjavik, reached by a drive to the trailhead and a short walk in (footwear and weather check). Plan the shoot during the summer window, when light, road status, and crowd levels line up for photography. The downloadable Landscape map pins exact GPS coordinates, parking, and nearby waypoints so you can fold it into a wider route instead of hunting for the pull-off on arrival.
Planning more than one stop? Open the landscape GPS map for Iceland to put Karl og Kerling on the same offline layer as everything nearby.
Notes on this location
Compiled from published sources rather than a visit. Sources are listed below.
Rock formations — "old trolls" — in the Jökulsárgljúfur canyon, reached on an easy 2–3 km walk from the Vesturdalur car park, about an hour there and back.
- Where
- Jökulsárgljúfur, Vatnajökull National Park
- Trail
- 2–3 km, graded easy, from the Vesturdalur car park
- Time
- About one hour
- On the way
- The route follows the Jökulsá river past geological features along the canyon
An hour on an easy graded trail makes this a viable second stop rather than a day of its own — worth pairing with something else in the canyon. The park describes the formations only as cliffs and "old trolls", so their scale and shape are not documented in the published record and are not stated here.
SourcesKarl and Kerling cliffs (V5) — Vatnajökull National Park
Light & aurora at this spot
Calculated from this location’s coordinates (65.926, -16.534). Iceland stays on UTC year-round, so these are local times.
- Summer
- Midnight sun in June — the sun does not set, so golden light runs for hours either side of midnight.
- Winter
- December: only 3 h of daylight (11:31–14:31), but the sun never climbs above 0.8° — the entire day is golden hour. Sunrise bears SSE, sunset SSW.
- Aurora
- Aurora-grade darkness Sep–Mar, peaking at 13.1 h a night in December. Not possible Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug — the sky never gets dark enough.
Bar height is daylight hours. Months marked • have enough astronomical darkness for aurora; the rest do not.
Questions & answers
Karl og Kerling is a landscape in North Iceland, Iceland, approximately 535 km from Reykjavik. Exact GPS coordinates are included in the downloadable Landscape map.
The recommended season for Karl og Kerling is Summer. For light, plan around blue hour and the first hour after sunrise; Iceland's long shoulder-season twilight extends usable conditions on either side.
Drive/Hike access. Bring weather-appropriate footwear and check conditions before setting out. The downloadable GPS map puts the waypoint on your phone; your own app routes you to it from wherever you are.
Karl og Kerling is best visited during Summer. Outside that window, expect limited access, weather closures, or significantly different photographic conditions.