Reisa National Park

After a 50-minute drive from Storslett through the Reisadalen, the road suddenly ends in Saraelv. Close from here you find the new national park’s visitor center, Ovi Raaishiin, a gateway and the start of a trail leading to one of the most interesting protected areas of the whole of Norway, Reisa National Park.

Reisa National Park takes over where the Finnmarksvidda mountain plateau ends abruptly. The deep Reisa River canyon here looks like it was cut into the endless, unpopulated plateau by a giant axe blade. There is only one partly similar valley in Norway— the not-so-distant Sautso Canyon around the river Alta, about 85 km north-east from here.

Reisa National Park was established in 1986 and covers an area of 806 km². It’s main purpose is to protect wild nature consisting of spectacular waterfalls, ubeliveable deep canyons, harsh tree-less mountain plateaus with many lakes, thick Arctic forests, and very rich wildlife. The national park borders the cold Ráisduottarháldi protected landscape area to the west and the most mountainous wilderness area in Finland, Käsivarsi, to the southwest.

This upper part of long Reisadalen creates very interesting rocky formations, and walking here is like reading in a geology textbook. Especially some of the side canyons are totally mind-blowing and various. Maybe the most impressive side canyon is the extremely deep and narrow Giebáavži canyon or the harsh, weatherworn Avveklofta canyon.

The two billion-year-old geological history of the area can be read on the steep walls of Avveklofta. Granite and gneiss at the bottom, covered by a 200-meter-thick layer of sandstones and claystones, above which there is another layer of various types of rocks. Simply breathtaking wilderness.

In Reisa National Park, you can find many impressive waterfalls, including the fabled Mollisfossen, the highest waterfall in Northern Europe. Mollisfossen is 269 m high and is divided into 3 parts, of which the lowest has a free fall of 140 m. A few kilometers south-east of the Nedrefoss DNT cabin, you find another even more special “double waterfall,”  Imofossen, formed by two rivers, Reisa and Spanijohka, plunging over a vertical rock wall into a narrow rocky canyon. Nowhere in Norway will you see something as atmospheric and remote as this. Prepare yourself for a unique piece of Norwegian nature!