Kirkjufell

Where it sits. Kirkjufell stands alone on the northern coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in western Iceland, immediately west of the town of Grundarfjörður and directly on Route 54. It reaches 463 metres, which is modest by Icelandic standards, but it rises straight out of the sea and a flat coastal strip with no neighbouring summit to share the scale, so it reads as far higher. Seen from the east it is a steep-sided cone; from the north or south it flattens into a blade. Danish sailors charted it as Sukkertoppen, the sugar loaf, and the Icelandic name means church mountain, for the same reason of silhouette.

What it is made of. The mountain is a stack of alternating layers: basalt lava flows, softer volcanic tuff and sedimentary beds, some of them fossil-bearing, laid down over a long span before the last glaciation. During the ice ages the glaciers that filled this coast ground away the surrounding softer ground and left Kirkjufell as a resistant remnant, planing its flanks and steepening its sides. The layering is legible from the road, particularly in low sun, as horizontal bands running the length of the mountain. The seaward face is being cut back by weather and slumping, and the slopes shed rock regularly, which is part of why the ascent is far more serious than the height suggests. The layering also records a coastline that has moved: marine sediments sit within the stack, so the mountain preserves beds laid down under water between episodes of lava, and fossil-bearing horizons have been described from them.

On screen. Kirkjufell became one of the most recognisable Icelandic locations in Game of Thrones as the arrowhead mountain, the peak north of the Wall that appears in Bran Stark's visions of the Night King's army in the sixth season and returns in the seventh, when Sandor Clegane sees a mountain shaped like an arrowhead in the flames and the ranging party uses it to fix their position during the wight hunt. The production filmed here and composited the results into a frozen landscape that is colder, whiter and emptier than the real coast, which carries a working fishing town, a paved highway and farm fences within a few hundred metres of every camera position. The shape, though, is entirely genuine, and it is instantly identifiable from the roadside.

What you actually see today. The standard view pairs the mountain with Kirkjufellsfoss, a small three-step waterfall on the Kirkjufellsá river directly across Route 54, which sits so precisely in the foreground that the composition has become one of the most reproduced images in the country. A paid car park with toilets serves the falls, footbridges cross the river, and the paths are roped to keep walkers off the eroding banks. The whole visit takes twenty minutes. For a different angle, the pull-offs west of the mountain on Route 54 give a clean profile without the waterfall, and the harbour road in Grundarfjörður frames it above fishing boats. From September to March the mountain sits under a dark northern sky that makes it a favoured aurora foreground; in late June the midnight sun tracks behind its northern flank.

A word on climbing it. The route to the summit is short in distance and steep throughout, with two exposed rock steps where fixed ropes have been placed. It is not a maintained trail, the rock is loose and greasy when wet, and several people have died on it, including a cluster of accidents that pushed local rescue teams and the municipality to warn openly against unguided ascents. Guided climbs are available from Grundarfjörður and take around three hours return. Anyone without scrambling experience gets more from the shore paths and the waterfall than from an attempt on the ropes, and in winter the upper section is a mountaineering proposition rather than a hike.

Getting there and timing. Grundarfjörður is roughly 180 kilometres from Reykjavik, about two and a half hours by way of Borgarnes and Route 54, and the road is kept open year round though it can close briefly in storms. The waterfall car park is signposted and charges a modest daily fee. Crowds concentrate between eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, and at sunset in autumn, when photographers line the riverbank three deep. Early morning is quiet in every season. There is no shelter at the site and the wind comes straight off Breiðafjörður, so the twenty-minute stop can feel considerably longer than planned. Fuel, food and accommodation are all five minutes away in the town. Parking on the verges of Route 54 near the waterfall is prohibited and enforced, since the road carries fast traffic and the sightlines around the mountain are poor, and overnight camping at the site is not permitted.