Norway’s Most Beautiful Valley (Innerdalen)
Everyone including the tourist board calls Innerdalen ‘Norway’s most beautiful valley’. I wanted to go to get a deeper understanding of what’s so special about it, and what it’s like to live here. Most people who visit do so to climb its famous pyramidal peak, Innerdalstårnet and afterthat, they leave. The people I met here were surprised to find I had no interest in climbing the mountain. Instead, I spent my week hiking up the valley sides, finding hidden glacial lakes, streams and upland meadows.
The unique, almost alien, shape of Innerdalstårnet is a distinctive recurring motif but what a camera can’t capture is that you can hear waterfalls everywhere in the valley. There are so many of them, and their sound is dominant, especially that of the main cascade, which runs from the glacial lake Storvatnet. Much of the valley is blanketed in pristine woodland and, every now and then, I came across huge boulders, called erratics, covered in thick layers of moss, which had been deposited by retreating glaciers.
I visited in autumn, when there are golden leaves on the trees and the forest flooris littered with mushrooms, like in a fairytale. I got crazy lucky with the weather. It was one of the hottest Septembers in years, which made wild camping a dream. Parking my tent whereverI pleased gave me a sense of freedom and really immersed me in the landscape I could choose the view I wanted to wake up to each morning. Travelling this way, cooking my meals on a fire and falling asleep to the murmur of a stream, I felt both freer and more connected to nature.
The rule is to always leave each place as you find it and, if you’re on your own, to be sure someone knows youritinerary. You have to carry all the supplies you’ll need, but there are always moments that make the extra work feel worthwhile. One morning I awoke and climbed to the foot of a glacierto drink meltwaterthat had probably been frozen since the last ice age.
At the heart of the valley is Renndølestra, a working dairy farm that offers hikers beds in its grass topped bunkhouses, as well as a ready supply of its excellent waffles, served with homemade blackcurrant jam and soured cream. I learned about the valley’s history from the farm’s friendly owner, Eystein Opdøl, whose family has worked this land for nearly 300 years. He believes there has been a farm on this site since the 15th century and on the farmland itself there are a lot of Viking graves. Eystein’s mother even found a 1,000 year old Viking artefact a stone tray that had been used in the hen house to feed the chickens.
It now takes pride of place in the living room.
The valley is not accessible by road you have to walk the last few miles to reach it, which only makes it feel more special and secluded. It was so rewarding, coming over the top of a hill and seeing Innerdalen for the first time. That reveal, and the effort of getting here, is very much part of the experience and it’s something the Opdøl family have striven to protect. They have fought plans to lay a road into the valley, just as back in the 1960s Eystein’s grandfather opposed a scheme to create a hydroelectric dam at Innerdalsvatna. His campaign to win state protection for the land succeeded and, in 1967, Innerdalen became Norway’s first nature reserve. As long as there is a farm at Renndølestra, Innerdalen will remain a place of sanctuary for those who love adventure.
F Innerdalen is roughly a three hour drive from Trondheim airport, which can be reached via direct flight from London Gatwick (from £80 norwegian.com). Drive the RV 70 from Sunndalsøra to Tingvoll, turn off at Ålvundeid and park in Nedal. It’s an hour’s stroll to Renndølsetra, which offers private rooms and camping (private room from £215 full board, camping from £15 innerdalen.com).