Skaftafell park was founded in 1956 and has been enlarged twice afterwerds. Skaftafell is Iceland’s second largest National Park after Þingvellir. The park is about 4807 km2 in measures. The park is one of Icelands distinctive natural attractions of extravagant beauty.

Nowhere else in the country you can find such natural variety and contrasts as abundant and evident as in Skaftafell. Vast glaciers, ice blue glacial lakes with large icebergs, mute peaks, jagged rocks, forbidding crevasses, gulches, canyons, hanging valleys, shimmering ice tunnels, huge ice arches, icy waterfalls, mountain, glacial rivers, wild flowers, waterfalls, basalt columns, rare birdlife, flora and fauna.

The rare and unique landscape is very similar to some of the Alps, it has been formed in thousands of years by different influences of fire, volcanic eruptions of Öræfajökull, the water from the glaciers Skeiðarárjökull and Skaftafellsjökull and the river of Skeiðará.  A lot of volcanic eruptions under the ice cap can give rise to the glacier runs which make the Skeiðará larger so every time it changes the nature and its surrounding, the last glacier run was in 1996.

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