Nordfjord
The Lake at the End of the Valley
Past the last farm above Nordfjord, a glacier-green lake lies still between walls of rock. We rowed out at dawn and forgot to row back.
- Location
- Loen, Norway
- Coordinates
- 61°52′N 6°52′E
- Published
- Reading time
- 3 min read
Most people come to Loen for the view from the top. The Skylift hauls you more than a thousand metres up the face of Mount Hoven in a few minutes, and the fjord lies below like a dropped ribbon. It is spectacular. But the place that changed our trip was the valley behind the village, where the road narrows and follows a river the colour of jade.
Lodalen runs inland toward Jostedalsbreen, the largest glacier on mainland Europe, and along the way the river opens into Lovatnet, a long lake held between walls of rock so steep that snow clings to them in ribbons well into summer.
Rowing out at dawn
We borrowed a small wooden boat from a farm on the shore and went out before six. There was no wind at all. The lake was so still that the mountains seemed to continue straight down into the water, and every stroke of the oars sounded enormous.
The colour comes from the glacier. Meltwater carries rock ground as fine as flour into the lake, and the light comes back a green that looks impossible in photographs. In person it simply looks as if the lake is lit from below.
Some mornings you go out to take a picture. Other mornings you leave the camera in the bag.
A calm with a memory
The stillness here has a history. In 1905, and again in 1936, rockfalls from the mountain above sent great waves across the lake, sweeping away the farms along its shore. Once you know, you read the valley differently: beautiful, and not entirely asleep.
To the foot of the ice
By midday we had driven to the end of the road, where Kjenndalsbreen, one arm of the great glacier, pours down the valley wall in a frozen blue cascade. We walked up to the viewpoint, stayed well back from the ice, and listened to it creak and crack in the sun. Then we drove back down to the lake and swam, very briefly, in the coldest water either of us has ever felt.
Field notes
When to go: June to September, when the valley road is open to the glacier and the lake is free of ice.
Getting there: Loen is around six hours by road from Bergen, or about an hour from the small airport at Sandane.
Do: Ride the Skylift for the view, then spend the rest of the day at lake level.
Respect the ice: Never walk onto the glacier without a certified guide. It moves, and it calves without warning.
