Local transportation to Hekla (maybe Landmannalaugar)

A bus trip to Landmannalaugar would give you a nice view of Hekla - especially if the weather cooperates. Climbing the mountain isn't recommended - it's well overdue for an eruption and from the first tremors to a full eruption you will only have 15 minutes to an hour - far too short for anything other than a call to say goodbye to the family :-)

This is not say nobody climbs Hekla these days - we all have our risk threshold set at a particular point ...

Thanks for the tips Leifur.

Sorry, I should be more clear than my initial post: We won't be coming from Reykjavik, and this is why the bus option is challenging. We'll be driving from the southeast part of the island. We're staying near Skaftafell one night, and probably near Skogar the next. And from there we want to get to Hekla / Landamannalaugar. That's the difficulty--I'd love to take the bus, but I'm trying to avoid driving west to Reykjavik just to catch the bus back east to Hekla and environs. So the goal is to pick up the bus very near to Rt. 26 if possible, or find another way into the park from where we'll be. I hope that makes sense.

Well, it seems you can get on the Reykjavik-Landmannalaugar bus at Leirubakki (not a place I know very well!) and you can presumably jump off on the way back. Hopefully you can find a safe parking spot for the car at Leirubakki.

Ah great, thanks. I should have looked harder. I'm not sure we can get to Leirubakki without 4x4, but it looks like the same bus also picks up in Hella and Selfoss, which would work for us. Below is a bus schedule I found (for others' reference).

http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_rek_landml_rek_trex_htm.htm

There is also a bus that goes to Landmannalaugar from the east if you prefer, you could take it from Kirkjubaejarklaustur. Timetables all on www.nat.is. However if just going there as a day trip you get a somewhat longer stay there if you go in from the west. You can go to Leirubakki in a 2wd. It's more normal to catch the bus at Hella though.

Quite a few people say they want to go "to Hekla" but it is a fairly pointless ambition. When there isn't any cloud, you can see it from a very long way away. But that is pretty uncommon, it hides in the cloud most days. The trailhead is up a very rough track, but there's no point going there unless you are going to climb it. I cycled along the western road to Landmannalaugar once, with a an overnight camp close to where that track turns off, and we were unaware of the mountain, even though we were close to it, because there was no sight of it. I've been much more aware of it down on the ring road on a rare clear day. Climbing it is non-trivial, risk of eruption aside, the top is permanently covered in snow, very steep, and there is a lot of steep loose volcanic material to get over too. And then there's the fact that the top is in the cloud 9 days out of 10. There are tour organisers in Reykjavik who will take you to climb it, but I don't think they actually summit very often, because there's not much point struggling on to the top in white-out.

A bus trip to Landmannalaugar would give you a nice view of Hekla - especially if the weather cooperates.

More accurate: A bus trip to Landmannalaugar can give you a nice view of Hekla on rare days when the weather cooperates.

I looked into this a bit further. If a trip to Landmannalaugar is worth the effort then yes, arrange to get on a bus in Hella or Selfoss. If you just want a glimpse of Hekla from reasonably close up, just drive north on road 26 (mostly asphalt, some gravel but an excellent road) until it meets road 32 then drive back south on that road (crossing Þjórsá on a bridge).

You could in fact continue north on 26 until Hrauneyjar, Google erroneously shows that stretch as "F26" but in fact it's an asphalt road and should be a plain "26" until past Hrauneyjar.

Check out this page (our highway administration) for details - red is asphalt, brown gravel, "F" (for "fjall" = "mountain") denotes 4x4 territory.

You can in fact use Google's street view to get an idea of what you'll see - but only road 32 is covered, not 26.

Thanks Iviehoff. I needed to hear this, very helpful. Probably we won't strain ourselves to see Hekla.

Do you think it'd be worthwhile to take the Hella-Landmannlaugar bus round-trip in a day, just to enjoy the scenery on the ride? It will also be near the end of our 2-week trip in Iceland, so I guess we may already have had plenty of mind-blowing scenic drives. We considered overnighting in Landmannalaugar, but seems tricky to book stuff 1-days out in high season (esp. for a simple overnight).

Oh, by the way, I've been up Hekla quite a few times myself, here are some photos from a trip organised by Útivist where I led a group of hikers up the mountain in July 2007 - this year there's much more snow ....

Do you think it'd be worthwhile to take the Hella-Landmannlaugar bus round-trip in a day, just to enjoy the scenery on the ride?

Looking out of a coach window to see scenery isn't really my thing, I prefer to enjoy scenery in the outside air and at my own speed. So it's your call, and you'd want to sure it wouldn't be raining all day. It is quite different scenery from what you get in most of Iceland, and a really amazing area. You do get a few hours at Landmannalaugar to walk around, see the coloured rocks and great scenery, though of course not nearly long enough, and at the time of day when the daytrippers are in, it's busy and the warm stream is likely to be in heavy demand. It will still be there next time you come to Iceland so you could keep it for another time when you can make arrangements enjoy it at your own pace.