About Geisfossen, Ryefossen, and the Jostedalen Waterfalls
Geisfossen (I’ve also seen it called Geisdalsfossen) was a series of four segmented waterfalls plunging side-by-side each other.
It seemed like it was the most famous of the many waterfalls we saw in Jostedal Valley (Jostedalen; pronounced “YOO-steh-doll-un”) as it was probably the nearest waterfall that we encountered to the impressive and accessible Nigardsbreen Glacier.
Julie and I targeted this waterfall because our Statens Kartverk Road Atlas of Norway marked this as one of the waterfalls in this region.
Our experience with that road atlas had been pretty spot on in that identified waterfall icons in there tended to be significant waterfalls.
In any case, Julie and I took advantage of several pullouts and road shoulders to get out of the way of traffic, get out of the car, and enjoy the falls.
Perhaps the only caveat to doing this was that no matter which spot we stopped for, we always had to contend with wire fences below and power lines above.
From looking at the maps, this waterfall was sourced by the Spørteggbreen Glacier so it could very well have somewhat reliable flow throughout the year for as long as the glacier would remain substantial enough to keep feeding the Geistdøla watercourse.
In a way, Geisfossen was our waterfalling excuse to talk about the many other waterfalls we encountered throughout Jostedalen.
Ryefossen
Indeed, first and foremost of these other waterfalls was the Ryefossen waterfall (also spelled Ryfossen).
My Norwegian dictionary translated the word ry to mean “fame” or “reknown” which would suggest the falls might be translated as the Famous Falls.
However, the alternate spelling rye meant “rug” suggesting the translation would be the Rug Falls.
Neither of these names seemed to make sense, but in any case, it was a very tall and impressive waterfall on the Rydøla stream that appeared to drain from the highlands of Rydalen before plunging a reported 335m to the Jostedøla River, which was the river that ran within Jostedalen.
Once again, our trusty Veiatlas Norge (Norway Road Atlas) by SK (Statens Karvtverk) also marked an icon where this waterfall was supposed to be so we were looking out for it while driving in Jostedalen.
In the pair of passes that we took to get a look at this waterfall, Julie took photos from the car on the first pass (largely because we couldn’t find any suitable road shoulders or pullouts).
On the second pass on the return drive heading south in Jostedalen, we managed to find a somewhat obscure and unsigned pullout a little bit north of the direct view of the falls.
I had to brave the traffic in order to get a cleaner look at the falls away from the tall bushes that were in the way.
Other Jostedalen Waterfalls
Finally, there were also countless other waterfalls that tumbled down the walls of Jostedalen.
Since there were simply too many waterfalls to count, we couldn’t identify them individually.
So, I got a little lazy and just clumped these waterfalls on this page and broad-brushed them with the moniker “the Jostedalen Waterfalls.”
Nigardsbreen and the Jostedalsbreen Icefield
Now while this page was about the waterfalls of Jostedal Valley, I think the real claim to fame of this valley and the general area (which seemed to be known as Glacier Country or breheimen) was indeed the glaciers.
We ended up getting fairly close to the Nigardsbreen Glacier, which was about 8-10km north of Geisfossen.
However, there were other roads and side valleys that we didn’t explore that also seemed to provide access to other glacier termini.
The thing with these other glaciers was that they were all side arms of the vast Jostedalsbreen Glacier, which was said to be the largest glacier in Continental Europe.
It turned out that Nigardsbreen was just the first glacier belonging to Jostedalsbreen that we ended up visiting on our June-July 2005 Norway trip.
We’d visit at least one other one a few days later as well as encounter a few more along the road the next day.
The area we covered over the next few days was several hundreds of kilometers so that ought to provide some perspective as to how big the Jostedal Glacier really was!
Authorities
Geisfossen, Ryefossen, and the other waterfalls in Jostedalen reside in the Luster Municipality. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website or Facebook page.
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