Jostedalsbreen

Jostedalsbreen National Park was established in 1991 in western Norway and protects the ice cap of the same name, the largest glacier in continental Europe. It covers some 1,310 km² and extends for about sixty kilometres over a raised plateau, with an ice thickness that in places exceeds six hundred metres.

Dozens of glacier tongues descend from the ice cap into the surrounding valleys. Some, such as Briksdalsbreen and Nigardsbreen, reach very low altitudes and end a short distance from woods and meadows, a contrast uncommon in Europe that has made the park a classic destination. Those tongues have been in accelerating retreat since the late twentieth century, and several have shortened by hundreds of metres in a few decades, which has turned the park into a reference observatory for climate change.

Around the ice the landscape is high mountain: U-shaped valleys, fresh moraines, lakes turned turquoise by the rock flour in suspension and waterfalls fed by the melt. The vegetation is confined to the ice-free areas, with alpine heaths and high meadows, and the wildlife includes wild reindeer, Arctic fox and mountain birds. The park also preserves historic routes that crossed the ice cap between the inland valleys and the fjords, used for centuries for trade and transhumance.