Before the days of motorised transport, the road over Kjolur was the most frequently travelled north-south route in Iceland. Kjolur is the name given to the high band of country that forms a major watershed between the Langjokull and Hofsjokull glaciers. Kjolur means, "keel" and indeed the landscape resembles an upturned boat. The area is in fact a broad pass between two large glaciers and, as such, is subject to sudden unpredictable and dramatic weather changes.

In the mid-eighteenth century, travel over Kjolur dwindled. It is difficult to say whether it was tales of outlaws or trolls that kept people away, but it's known that outlaws lived in the area and travellers perished. The best-known story is about the Reynistadir brothers and their companions - five men who were sent from Skagafjordur in the north of Iceland to buy sheep in the southeast. On their way back north, extreme weather with frost and gales greeted them and their flock. They were never seen alive again. Many yarns have been spun to explain their disappearance, not least because two bodies were found a year later - but 65 years passed before the discovery of two more. A fifth body has never been found.