Detour #180: The hidden mountain road that's Norway's most spectacular secret

You won’t find it in your satnav but with a bit of local help Will Gray discovers a switchback-strewn mountain pass to the biggest ice field in Europe.

Driving through Norway's spectacular fjordland, it’s hard to keep your eyes on the road. Jaw-dropping scenery appears around every turn, with deep-cut valleys rising to jagged mountain peaks. The more you explore, the bigger the scenery gets. And if you drive far enough, you will eventually reach what remains of the ice that created it all.

My journey to the glaciers that shaped all this geology begins in Stavanger, with a multi-day journey crossing from fjord to fjord on smooth single and dual carriageway roads, linked by a mix of electric ferries, arching bridges and record-breakingly long road tunnels. Eventually, I reach the country’s largest and deepest fjord, Sognefjorden, and at the town of Gaupne, the fjord waters turn from deep blue to a cloudy green, signifying a transition from sea to icy glacier-fed river water.

At this point the route turns up into the mountains, barriers lining the narrowing road as it followed the course of the Jostedøla river. Flowing in the opposite direction to my journey, the river takes ice melt to the fjord and, rather bizarrely, I’m amazed to see a thick layer of steam hovering just above its surface. A brief stop at a pedestrian bridge across it allows me to experience this unique and slightly eerie curiosity first hand, with an incredible temperature gradient between the cold river beneath and the warm summer air above.

The small town of Gjerde is a scattered settlement of homes, a small shop and a campsite that is the gateway to the mountain region. A few miles further on, the well manicured tourist trail takes me to the dramatically shaped Breheimsenteret glacier museum, where the Jostedalsbreen appears in all its glory, its snaking ice tongue licking down into a tree-filled valley to create the classic picture-perfect view.

This is the largest glacier in continental Europe, but while the jagged blue tinted ice floes feeding into the valleys are mightily impressive, the true scale of this gigantic sheet of ice remains hidden from view. Hidden, that is, unless you have a little local knowledge and a spare 50 NOK note.

Thanks to some helpful insight from the kind owner of Jostedal Camping, I backtrack past Gjerde until a turn-off takes me onto a bridge, crossing over that steaming river that guided me here. A few hundred metres later, at a turn-off to the right, I deposit my toll fee in the roadside honesty box, drop into a low gear and start to climb.

The un-named road is invisible even on Google maps at all but the closest levels of magnification. It ascends almost a kilometre in altitude, snaking its bumpy and pitted path up the side of the mountain and providing ever-widening views of the valley below. As I navigate the 17 hairpins, most protected only by rocks as barriers, the journey slowly reveals the immense ice field I have come to see, draped over the mountains like pristine white fondant icing on a giant cake.

From the upper sections, those glaciers that had previously looked so big from the valley below appear like little fingers of ice, dwarfed by the white sheet now visible above them. At the parking point, which marks the end of the road, the still waters of the Vanndalsvatnet provide the perfect mirror for this immense panoramic mountain scenery.

If your legs can take it, you can leave your car here and take a relatively gentle one-hour hike up to a spectacular ridgeline, where a fun final scramble takes you to a crest with an even greater view of the ice field. Even in August, I find patches of snow here, a legacy of Norway’s bitter winter providing the perfect fodder for a summer snowball fight, with a view.

It’s hard to tear myself away from the scenery and it is gone nine at night before I make it back down to the car. Thanks to the summer sun, however, daylight is only just beginning to fade. And just when I think it could not get any better, the setting sun on the drive back down bathes that icy white cap in a deep orange glow. Norway’s best kept secret? I think so.

Words & Photography Will Gray

---

ROADBOOK

CLASS: Glacial journey

NAME: Norway’s secret ice road

ROUTE: Stavanger to the ice field

COUNTRY:Norway

DISTANCE:305 miles

---

---