Skageflå

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Geirangerfjord, Skageflå on the mountain side

Skageflå is one of a handful of farms on the slopes of Geirangerfjord, in Norway. Although it was abandoned in 1916, Skageflå was once one of the richer goat farms in Geiranger, and had 2 or 3 mountain pastures for its animals^[1].

Skageflå lies approximately 250m above the fjord. The farm is a 2-4 hour walk from Geiranger, and can also be reached with help of a local sight-seeing boat (M/S Geirangerfjord). The boat takes passengers to a spot on the fjord just below the farm, from which point they face a very steep half-hour climb.

Magdalene Thoresen, Henrik Ibsen's mother-in-law, said of Skageflå,

This fjord is surrounded by the steepest and, one is almost tempted to say, the most preposterous mountains on the entire west coast. It is very narrow and has no habitable shore area, for the precipitous heights rise in sheer and rugged strata almost straight out of the water. Foaming waterfalls plunge into the fjord from jagged peaks. There are, however, a few mountain farms here, and of these one or two have such hazardous access, by paths that wind around steep precipices, and by bridges that are fixed to the mountain with iron bolts and rings, that they bear witness in a most striking way to the remarkable powers of invention which the challenges of nature have developed in man^[2].