After Bolafjall we drove south from Ísafjörður on Route 60 toward Dynjandi — the largest waterfall in the Westfjords. The waterfall is visible from the road several kilometres before the turnoff — a white vertical streak against the dark mountain above Dynjandivogur bay at the inner end of Arnarfjörður. It looks smaller than it is from a distance. The car park sits at the base. From there a marked path climbs 1 mile with around 300 feet of elevation gain alongside the Dynjandisá river to the top.

Dynjandi is not a single waterfall but seven, named individually and encountered in sequence from the bottom up. The walk is the point — each fall is different and the main cascade only reveals its full scale as you get close. The entire area has been protected as a natural monument since 1981.

Starting from the car park, the sequence from bottom to top:

Bæjarfoss — also called Sjófoss, the lowest fall, wide and low, almost at sea level.

Hundafoss — “Dog Falls,” a narrow chute dropping into a small pool.

Hrísvaðsfoss and Kvíslarfoss — two falls sitting directly opposite each other across the river, the only point on the path where falls face each other simultaneously.

Göngumannafoss — “Traveller’s Falls.” It is possible to walk behind this one — a narrow curtain of water with enough gap between the rock face and the falling water to stand in.

Strompgljúfrafoss — the water compressed into a tight canyon slot before dropping.

Hæstahjallafoss — the first fall immediately below Dynjandi, right next to it at the top of the path. Low but wide, the last fall before the main cascade comes into full view above you.

Then Dynjandi itself. 330 feet high, 100 feet wide at the top and widening to nearly 200 feet at the base — a distinctive trapezoidal shape, wider at the bottom than the top. The Westfjords sit on some of Iceland’s oldest basalt formations, 10 to 15 million years old, with harder and softer layers alternating. As water flows over these layers the softer rock erodes faster, creating the stepped and widening structure. The name means thunderous in Icelandic and the sound at the base carries across the entire bay.

After the falls we drove north to Þingeyri, a village of around 250 people at the mouth of Dýrafjörður, one of the deepest and most dramatic fjords in the Westfjords. Sandafell mountain rises steeply behind the village. We camped there for the night.