In Snæfellsjökull National Park on the western coast is one of Iceland’s iconic black sand beaches: Dritvik Djúpalónssandur – Black Lava Pearl Beach. Dritvik Djúpalónssandur refers to two separate things: Dritvik is the cove and Djúpalónssandur is the beach, although the name refers to several deep lagoons that are just slightly inland.

Dritvik Djúpalónssandur is set into the otherwise rocky cliff. From the parking lot, you have a couple of paths that you can follow to get down to the coastline, where you can walk along the beach on days with good weather.

Historically Dritvik was also an important fishing hub for this area of Iceland and was inhabited from at least 1690 to 1950 when it was abandoned. During this time about 400 people lived here year round but many seasonal workers also came between February and late May.

You may also notice many references to Bárðar Snæfellsás, who was said to be the first settler of this area and was half man and half troll according to the Icelandic saga Bardarsaga Snaefellsas. Legend says that Bárðar and his family moved up to Snaefellsjökull where they still live today.

On the day we went to this area, the winds were gusting at 42 mph / 68 kph, so it was actually dangerous to walk down the paths, which can be steep in places, to the beach. It had also started raining more heavily, so we decided to stay further up and look at this area from the safety of a view point. Fortunately we were the only people there!

Here is a video of us trying to walk back from the viewpoint. Fortunately the wind had calmed down a bit but it was still difficult to walk:

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