Tag Archives: GeoIceland Tours

Geothermal hot springs

As we tour the Geysir Hot Spring Area, let’s take a look at an interesting statue. The figure doing all the heavy lifting in this piece represents Sigurður Greipsson, who was Iceland Glíma Champion five years running, from 1922 until 1926. He retired undefeated in 1927. So, what is Glíma? It’s a form of Nordic folk wrestling, in this case a variant known as “trouser grip” wrestling in which the opposing wrestlers must remain standing at all times, and can only move around each other in a clockwise direction. Adding to the degree of difficulty, the wrestlers should avoid looking directly at their opponent, but rather over the opponent’s shoulder as much as possible.

Sigurður Greipsson — 5-time Glíma champion

This next photograph depicts one of the many boiling hot springs at this site:

Bubbling pool

Remember that on Friday I’ll be presenting a video of an actual eruption of Strokkur Geysir, as well as Gullfoss Falls. In the meantime I’ll leave you with this series of four Strokkur images taken at one-second intervals as it subsides from a previous eruption:

Strokkur Geysir

Strokkur Geysir

Strokkur Geysir

Strokkur Geysir

Litli (Little) Geysir

Continuing on our Golden Circle journey with GeoIceland Tours we eventually arrived at one of several tour highlights. This is Iceland’s Geysir Hot Spring Area, complete with bubbling pools of boiling water and shooting geysers.

Geysir Hot Spring Area

The most famous geyser here is the Great Geysir, but eruptions are sporadic at best. Fortunately, the nearby Strokkur spews forth every six to ten minutes and, while it doesn’t attain the heights of the Great Geysir’s 230 feet/70 meters, it does frequently manage an impressive 49 to 66 feet/15-20 meters, and on rare occasions may reach as high as 100 to 130 feet/30-40 meters. Below I’ll present photos of Strokkur, but make sure you come back Friday for a video of Gullfoss falls and a Strokkur eruption. Here is a series of three photos taken at approximately one-second intervals of a Strokkur eruption:

Strokkur (Churn) geyser

Strokkur (Churn) geyser

Strokkur (Churn) geyser

And here, less than seven minutes later, you can see Strokkur was getting ready to erupt yet again:

Strokkur (Churn) geyser

Strokkur and the Great Geysir are not the only geothermal attractions to be seen and photographed here. There are some thirty bubbling pools and smaller geysirs. The first photo in this article is of a bubbling mini-geyser called Litli (Little) geysir, and this photo below is of another mini-geyser:

Small geyser at Geysir Hot Spring Area