Jutulhogget Canyon

Jutulhogget canyon, 2.5 km long, 150- 300 meters wide and up to 240 meters deep, is an impressive and striking landscape feature. It is the result of a dramatic event during the final demise of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet at the end of the last Ice Age. As the ice sheet retreated across the main drainage divide, meltwater was dammed between local spillways and the receding ice margin. A big glacial lake – “Nedre Glomsjø” – formed in Østerdalen valley, covering a 1350 km2 large area, holding 140 km3 of water (about three times the size of Norway’s largest lake Mjøsa). When the glacier dam broke a catastrophic outburst flood (jökulhlaup) funneled southward beneath the remnant ice sheet. As the ice-dam collapse occurred in Rendalen, a large amount of water had to drain eastward from Østerdalen, leading to vast erosion and formation of the huge Jutulhogget canyon over a short period of time. The basement rock of Precambrian sandstone forms a huge thrust sheet related to the Caledonian orogeny. Weakened by old tectonic stress, it broke apart and was transported and re-deposited far downstream by the outburst flood. The gigantic boulders located downstream of the canyon tells a tale of the extreme energy involved during such outburst floods.