Laufskálavarða

Laufskálavarða is a lava ridge between Hólmsá and Skálm, next to road 1. The largest ridge is about 48x20 meters in size and there are smaller individual rocks to the east of it. On and around the ridge you can see a large number of small cairns, but legend has it that anyone who travelled over Mýrdalssandur for the first time should build a cairn for good luck, but the origin of this custom is not known, nor why it started.

It is impossible to date cairns, but many of them have been built in recent times. Mýrdalssandur was difficult to cross, with a lot of quicksand, unbridged rivers and it was easy to get lost there, so it is likely that the custom was established in the hope of increasing the chances of getting home safely. Laufskálvarða derives its name from the farm of Laufskálar, but the farm supposedly stood nearby but was destroyed in a glacial outburst flow from Katla volcano around the year 980.

The location of the farm is not known and no traces of it were found when the area was surveyed for archaeological remains. A small house with a viewing platform is at Laufskálavarða and there is a magnificent view in all directions from there.