Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Kåfjorddalen - Oksfjellet

Another weekend in the beautiful Kåfjord valley. On Saturday we hiked up Oksfjellet, a mountain straight up from the campsite in Birrtavarre. The landscape in this area south of Kåfjorden is characterised by deep steep glacial valleys and extensive top plateaus (flat-topped mountains). The area is known to be at higher risk for rockslides and one of the most active regions, Nordnes-fjellet west of Kåfjord, is monitored by a GPS station. That the area is active is obvious from the many large cracks, not only along the steep valley walls, but also in the middle of the top plateaus as can be seen on some of the photos below. These flat-topped mountains are quite different from those in Lyngen (Daltinden): the rocktype in Lyngen is hard and massive gabbro, while this area in Kåfjorden consists of well-layered metasedimentary rocks which fractures and breaks apart easier than the gabbro.

our route

Looking back towards Kåfjorden, from underneath a glacier scoured cliff.

Nice waterfalls as usual

Remember this one? Lemmings were running all around us when we sat down for lunch.

Climbing up the block covered slope

Tony managed to split a rock ;-)

These mountains are full of major cracks and faults and don't look very stable

Another deep crack

Heading down into the valley

Tony negotiating a "recent", post-glacial, landslide blocking the valley

It is really autumn now

Steep track down through a colourful forest

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