Úlfarsfell

During my visit to Reykjavik, Iceland for the 2026 solar eclipse I started looking for any local SOTA peaks I could activate. Obviously I found one as I’m doing this activation report.

Úlfarsfell (TF/SV-041) is located about 5 miles (8 km) or so east of Reykjavik and is readily accessible for a half-day activation. To get there I walked from my hotel to the bus terminal at Skúlagata and there jumped on bus 18.

Some 40 minutes later I got off at Skyggnisbraut, a quiet suburb filled with modern condos and apartments.

When you get off the bus you can actually easily spot the peak, just look north and you’ll see the telcom mast at the top.

I walked straight east on the Úlfarsfellsvegur road until I got to the trail head and from there it was a fairly straight shot towards the top.

This area is popular among the locals for a quick and easy hike. If the weather is good you will likely have plenty of company as I did during a sunny and clear August day. Being on vacation I decided to take my time and thoroughly enjoy the walk to the top. To be honest this is a rather picturesque and beautiful part of the world so don’t rush it unless you absolutely have to.

I took my sweet time and spent about 45 minutes to get to the top. The trail is rather wide but rocky in some parts. Still, I used regular shoes and didn’t have any problem. If the weather is wet I would definitely use proper hiking shoes though.

At the very top there is a rather neat lookout platform with seating.

As previously mentioned I had plenty of company during my visit there so I decided to set up shop a bit away from the muggles (non-ham hikers). The night before this trip I had thankfully managed to realize I forgot to pack the straps for my antenna pole and quickly threw those in my suitcase. Of course, when I left the hotel earlier that day I promptly forgot to move those from my suitcase to my backpack. But as a resourceful and plucky ham I knew where there is a will there is a way. While I couldn’t easily use the viewing platform to support my antenna pole I used rocks from a nearby cairn to build a small support structure that actually worked out just fine.

I usually set an alert before these activations and rely on the reverse beacon network for spotting. This time I did exactly that and, as I had cell coverage, was able to confirm this. With my 41-foot random wire in the air and my QMX plugged into an AT100M tuner I easily got on 20m.

Chris (F4WBN) was my first contact. I was rather pleased with that as I’ve almost worked him before in California so it was good to have this one in my log. From there followed a total of seven more stations, including Alex (S57S) which, I must admit, I struggled a bit with all the dits. At one point I even had somewhat of a pileup. Being a not-very-good-CW-op that was a bit of a challenge but I got through it. I switched to 30m, spotted myself manually, and got Miche (F4HZR) outside of Paris. This was the last HF contact as I got no more on 30m or 40m.

At this point the breeze at the top was starting to get to me but I got out my HT and started calling on 145.500 FM. Jonas (TF3JB) got back to me and we chatted for a bit. Always great to connect to local hams during these micro-DXpeditions!

I packed up my gear and headed down. On the way I did make a slight detour to the nearby Hákinn vantage point where you actually have a better view of Reykjavik below.

Then it was just a matter of backtracking to the bus stop and take route 18 back into town. Overall this was a rather enjoyable trek outside the city and, as an American ham, work a lot of strange call signs from France, England, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Slovenia, Austria, and of course Iceland.

73!