Where the Fjord Ends and the Land Begins

Notice how the landscape changes around us. Behind us lies the fjord – calm, still, deep blue. Ahead of us, the Olden Valley opens up, framed by mountain walls that rise almost vertically from the valley floor. This valley was not shaped by chance erosion. It was the ice that created it – colossal glaciers that tens of thousands of years ago pressed their way down through the mountains with almost incomprehensible force, scraping out the bedrock metre by metre. What we see now is the result: the classic U-shaped glacial valley, wide and flat at the bottom, with vertical mountain sides rising to between 1,500 and 1,800 metres (5,000 to 6,000 feet) on either side. Where the fjord met the ice, the glacier left behind massive moraine deposits – mounds of rock and sand carried along over vast periods of time. Some of them form low ridges across the valley floor, almost invisible beneath the green summer landscape, but they tell a quiet story of ice ages and a world we can barely imagine. Today, it is the ice high up in the mountains that sustains everything you see around you.