Gullfoss: The Golden Falls
There is a horrific roaring thunder that the average visitor can hear before they even fully comprehend the beauty of Gullfoss. The water crashes over the two falls at a rate of 100-180 cubic meters per second before plunging into a 35 meter deep and 2.5 kilometer long crevice. It is said that as visitors approach Gullfoss the river appears to simply stop, disappearing into the Earth. It is also said that Gullfoss is the most photographed waterfall in Iceland. With the view this raging torrent of water plunging many meters into a hidden crevice presents its easy to believe such sayings.
Gullfoss is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iceland. The river which flows over it is the Hvitá or the White River. Hvitá is an icy cold river flowing from its source underneath Langjökull glacier before it hit’s the falls and after which it continues on its way over 133 kilometers to empty into the Atlantic Ocean. The glacial runoff in addition to water from rains helps to give Gullfoss waterfall one of the largest volumes of water in Europe. So much water flows over it per second that it would only take a few seconds to fill a decent sized building to the brim.
As mentioned before Gullfoss is composed of two separate waterfalls with falls of 11 meters and 21 meters one after the other. There are occasional glacial outbursts, jökulhlaup, which increase the volume of the waterfalls. The highest recorded volume during one of these outbursts was 2000 meters per second.
The crevice into which the river falls appears to have been formed by repeated glacial outbursts during the end period of the last ice age. The rock over which the river pours is cooled lava flows from Icelands earlier highly volcanic history. Hvitá managed to find its way into a fissure in this lava flow and through erosion has carved the passage through it.
The land surrounding Gullfoss is 200 meters above sea level and filled with hardy vegetation suited to the cold environment. Plains of low blueberry, holy grass and dwarf birch shrubs coexsist with lichen making its home on rocky landscape.
Many of the waterfalls in Norway are utilized by Hydroelectric facilities in the production of electricity, but Gullfoss has managed to escape utilization. Partly through luck and the efforts of Sigríður Tómasdóttir in the late 1800’s to keep developers from building a plant on the waterfall. There is a plaque with her profile dedicated to her efforts displayed at the top of the waterfall.
She was so dedicated to preserving the waterfall as is, that she once threatened to jump into the falls if a plant was built. This wasn’t necessary as the parties interested in building found that they didn’t have enough money to pay rent on the land which Gullfoss rests on and use of it returned to the owners.