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A (Partial) Trip along F899 (Flateyjardalsvegur – Pictured Story)

Florian Buechting Places & Sights No Comments

It’s summer season in Iceland right now again. People explore the amazing highlands. While I still struggle to complete a Driving in Iceland guide posting, I take you to a trip I in fact took in summer 2021, with a Dacia Duster 4WD rental car by Geysir car rental. The trip is taking you to a part of the legendary F-roads. However, the F899 in the very North of the country is not that famous like the F35 Kjölur Route or the F26. Enjoy a trip along the Flateyjardalsvegur on a sunny day in Iceland in my Pictured Story.

 

F899 Flateyjardalsvegur – Location & Road Access

The F899 is a road along the Ausuradalur valley. It can be easily reached by a short drive from Akureyri. I approached the road from the South, driving along the 835, which is an unpaved, but easy to drive route.

As all F-roads, you are only allowed to drive the F899 in summer. The road is limited to high clearance 4WD cars. The road has a couple of normal fords, where you should majorly be aware of sharp rock pieces. However, the route also features some river crossings as well. You should thus not take the track  There is an overnight camp site and even a public toilet at the end of the F899.

 

F899 Flateyjardalsvegur – Getting There

As said, I started my road trip detouring from the #1 Ring Road to the 835 road Northbound. It is an easy, rather flat gravel road – driving there with a not too low 2WD car should be a rather easy drive. The typical Icelandic road sign already tells you the location of the F899 crossing.

The picturesque, but less thrilling part of my drive ended after some 13 km or slightly less than 15 minutes, when a sign lead to the way to the desired F-road.

 

F899 Flateyjardalsvegur – The (Partial) Route

There is a gate at the entrance to the F899 to avoid the sheep having an unwanted excursion. The first kilometers of the F899 are a really enjoyable gravel drive, the Duster is an absolutely fine choice for this section of the route. There is a bit of major gravel, but you have good visibility and not too many deep drops. There are some fordings, but as you see on the picture, they don’t require too much analysis of the water crossings. However, some of them are smaller creeks flowing into the major river, so they might be more tricky if for example it is warm and more ice from the mountains us melting.

More Driving Challenges

Don’t be too confused by Google Maps, when you have a closer look: the online map suggests that you never cross one of the bigger arms of the river and the creeks flowing into it. Most of the times, you indeed stay West (and a bit of uphill) from the water flowing throw the valley. The views were amazing. You see on the pictures that there are some slightly more challenging fordings – but these things are easily doable with a Duster or also a Suzuki Jimny.

The trail turns into a more hilly drive and the rocks gets bigger. Thus you need to increase your attention and reduce your speed on some of the spots. Remember the cattle gate? Yeah, there are indeed some sheep living along the F899. Likely they asked themselves why people drive this road by car.

Happy, Unhappy Ending

Ain’t the next picture an amazing view? The F899 is a great drive and offers beautiful memories – unfortunatlely it also offers river crossings in these area. If you look on the pictures below, the route to take is rather clear, but I did not dare to do that one. That will, by the way, also be my key rule when I write my Driving in Iceland guide: if you feel you might not be able to do it, turn around. I had to take the decision there – which is very unfortunate.

When you look at road trip videos of this drive on YouTube, you will see that you might be able to reach the coast with a Duster when you spot a comfortable route on that point. I turned around, ran into some huge Unimog trucks (that’s the very easy way to go for a F899 trip…) and still loved that I went for this one. Hope you enjoyed it as well.

 

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