Where to Experience the Best Freeriding Areas In Norway

This extreme winter sport takes all the fun of skiing and ads in the extra challenges of ungroomed terrain and courses that aren’t mapped out. Luckily, Norway also has plenty of destinations that are perfect for freeriding, but the best spots are sometimes a little harder to find than the luxury ski resort next door.

So, if you’re traveling to Norway seeking the ultimate adventure, you’ll need this guide to the nation’s best places to freeride.

With steep mountains, deep valleys, beautiful fjords and snowy winters, Sogndal is the ultimate place to do some epic free riding. Located near Jostedalsbreen, the biggest glacier in continental Europe, together with several other glaciers makes for an interesting blend of coastal and glacier climate creating perfect snow conditions.

Here you will find open forests perfect for free riding on powder days, summits accessible for intermediate level, as well a lot of big, technical and steep terrain. In the Sogndal region there are few or no challenging granite spikes sticking out to ruin your run, but great valleys to encounter that intermediate point between free riding and ski alpinism.

Much further north, Lofoten offers not only some of the best freeride skiing and snowboarding in Norway, but in all of Europe as well. That is why Lofoten is the chosen destination for the Lofoten Freeride, which is part of the Freeride Cup competition that involves approximately 150 competitors from various countries in an international freeride competition.

Its large collection of mountains, within only a few miles of each other, and a dramatically steep declines, the destination provides the ultimate experience that every freerider craves.

The Lyngsalpan or Lyngen Alps mountain range in Tromsø County is widely regarded as one of the best free riding areas in all of Norway. Here you will find hundreds og mountains over 1000 meters, several of them within protected nature reserves. Most people visit Lyngen to go skiing from March - May, but from May on you can also go midnight sun skiing here, a unique and fascinating experience!

The mountains in Lyngen offers challenges from medium to extreme, often accompanied by an amazing sea view. The Lyngen Alps are naturally compared with the Swiss Alps, but one advantage with Lyngen is the lower altitude. This makes the oxygen conditions a lot more breathable (pun intended) than in the «real» Alps.

All of these options and more are what makes Norway such a fantastic skiing and snowboarding destination. For anyone looking to try their hand at freeriding, they need to make sure that these three destinations are on the top of their list of places to visit.