Red walls, green water
Kerið is the fourth stop on most Golden Circle tours and the only one anybody charges you for. A volcanic crater about two hundred and seventy metres across and fifty-five deep, with red and black walls, a green lake in the bottom and a path all the way round the rim. The service fee is 700 ISK a head, the parking is free, and the official site says it is open “when the sun is shining”.
Quick answer
The short answer. 700 ISK per person at the gate, free parking, and about half an hour is enough. Worth it: it is the only stop on the loop with real colour, and the walk round the rim plus the steps down to the water take twenty minutes. Most tours include it; check whether yours collects the fee on the bus.
What it is
The one place on this route with real colour, and the reason it earns its place.
Kerið looks like the result of an explosion and it is generally not. The current reading is that it was a cone that emptied its own magma chamber, after which the roof of the chamber collapsed downward into the space, leaving a bowl rather than a blown-out hole.
The result is a crater with unusually intact walls: red and rust-black scoria on one side, stepped and layered, with moss growing in patches down the slope. The bottom sits below the water table, which is why there is a lake in it rather than a dry floor. Depending on the season that lake is somewhere between seven and fourteen metres deep, and it reads as green rather than blue because of the minerals and the algae.
The colour contrast is the point. Everywhere else on the Golden Circle is grey rock, white water and green moss. Kerið is the one stop that is red.
Visiting
A short stop, and the details make it better.
It goes to the landowners who maintain the paths and the steps. It is small, it is cash or card at the hut, and children generally go free. Some tours include it in the ticket price and some collect it on the bus — check which, because it surprises people.
The full circuit of the rim takes about fifteen minutes on gravel and gives you the crater from every angle. The steps down to the water are on one side only, and the view from the bottom looking up is the better photograph.
The red walls need light on them. At midday under cloud Kerið is a grey bowl with a pond in it; in the first or last hours of the day it is spectacular.
The lake freezes and snow picks out the layers in the walls. The steps can be icy and are sometimes closed, but the rim path stays walkable.
It does not need longer, and tours that give it twenty minutes are not short-changing you. This is a stop, not a destination.
Kerið is the fourth stop. The three that define the route are on one page.
Every stop on the loop→Book direct
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Common questions
The service fee is 700 ISK per person, paid at the gate. Parking is free. The money goes to the landowners who maintain the rim path and the steps down to the lake.
About two hundred and seventy metres across and fifty-five metres deep, with a lake in the bottom that is seven to fourteen metres deep depending on the season.
Yes, for half an hour. It is the only stop on the Golden Circle with real colour — red and rust-black walls against green water — and the rim walk plus the steps take about twenty minutes. It does not need longer.
Not one of the three classic sites, but it sits on Route 35 between Selfoss and the loop, and most Golden Circle tours include it as a fourth stop. Adding it costs almost no extra driving time.
The official site puts it as open “when the sun is shining” rather than by fixed hours. In practice it is accessible year-round; the steps down to the lake can be closed when they are icy.
No. The lake is not for swimming and the sides are steep scoria. People have played concerts on rafts on it, which is a different matter entirely.
Go deeper
The three headline sites and the six worth adding, with what each one costs.
GullfossTwo drops, 32 metres, 141 cubic metres a second, and the woman who saved it.
The other twoA rift between two continents, and the geyser that is asleep next to the one that is not.
Route230 km, which roads, which direction, and every car park with its fee.
ItineraryHour by hour from Reykjavík and back, in the order that misses the coaches.
PricesTwelve tours priced against each other and against driving it yourself.
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