Heiðmörk
Pseudocrater cluster and reforested heath where quarrying for a wartime airport nearly erased a volcanic landmark.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Heiðmörk in Reykjavik starts at Rauðhólar, a cluster of roughly eighty pseudocraters formed when lava met wet ground and flashed into steam, and traces how Second World War engineers quarried them for airport gravel until officials finally protected the site in 1961. It also follows the surrounding heath, set aside as a conservation area in 1950 after centuries of grazing had stripped it bare, and the Reykjavík Forestry Association volunteers who began planting saplings into frozen ground the following spring. You'll hear how millions of trees later, birch and spruce now stand where there was only wind-scoured heath. Look north for the low red hills of Rauðhólar rising out of the pines.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Rauðhólar
Cluster of rust-red pseudocraters carved by steam explosions, once numbering in the hundreds before quarrying stripped most away.
Hellisgerði
Pocket lava-rock garden with a shrunken cave, rare trees and the world's northernmost bonsai.
Suðurhlíðar
Heath-covered hillside where wild crowberries and blueberries have been foraged for generations.
Einarsgarður
Public park grown from an early plant nursery that proved trees could survive Iceland's climate.
Grasagarður Botanical Garden
Open-air living collection of Iceland's native flora beside a bird-filled pond in a city valley.
Esjan
Volcanic mountain range of basalt and tuff, its name an old word for flagstone, rising north of the capital.