Kirkjufell ( Icelandic: , "Church Mountain") is a 463 m high hill on the north coast of Iceland's Snæfellsnes peninsula, near the town of

Grundarfjörður Grundarfjörður () is a town in the north of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in the west of Iceland. It is situated between a mountain range and the sea. The nearby mountain Kirkjufell forms a small peninsula. Overview The town received the right ...

. It is claimed to be the most photographed mountain in the country. Kirkjufell was one of the filming locations for ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...

'' season 6 and 7, featuring as the "arrowhead mountain" that the Hound and the company north of the Wall see when capturing a wight. Kirkjufell contains volcanic rock but is not itself a volcano. It is a former

nunatak A nunatak (from Inuit ''nunataq'') is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge. They are also called glacial islands. Examples are natural pyramidal peaks. ...

, a mountain that protruded above the glaciers surrounding it during the Ice Age, and before that was part of what was once the area's

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

. This stratum is composed of alternating layers of Pleistocene lava and sandstone, with tuff at its summit.

Mountaineering

The mountain has been the scene of a number of mountaineering fatalities.

References

Mountains of Iceland Nunataks Pleistocene volcanism Snæfellsnes {{iceland-geo-stub