Øvre Dividal is a 770-square-kilometre national park in the mountains east of Bardufoss, established in 1971 and expanded in 2006. The Sami name is Dieváidvuovddi. It is one of the few places in Norway where all four large predators, bear, wolf, lynx and wolverine, leave tracks every year. Over 150 of the species found here are on the Norwegian red list of threatened species.
The lower valleys have pine forests with some trees over 500 years old, while higher up there are vast birch forests and open plateaus rising to Kistefjell at 1,632 metres. Thanks to calcium-rich bedrock and a continental climate with warm summers, the plant diversity is unusually high: more than 300 species of vascular plants, including several that exist nowhere else in Europe except in these border mountains between Norway and Sweden.
This was Sami land long before Norwegians arrived in the 1700s and 1800s. Pre-Christian sacrificial sites and old reindeer fences remain scattered through the park. Despite its size, the valley is one of Norway's driest, with only 282 millimetres of annual rainfall.
Access is via Dividalen road from E6, a long drive to the trailhead at Frihetsli. The Norwegian Trekking Association maintains three unmanned cabins along the trail. This is a place for proper hiking, not a quick stop.
The lower valleys have pine forests with some trees over 500 years old, while higher up there are vast birch forests and open plateaus rising to Kistefjell at 1,632 metres. Thanks to calcium-rich bedrock and a continental climate with warm summers, the plant diversity is unusually high: more than 300 species of vascular plants, including several that exist nowhere else in Europe except in these border mountains between Norway and Sweden.
This was Sami land long before Norwegians arrived in the 1700s and 1800s. Pre-Christian sacrificial sites and old reindeer fences remain scattered through the park. Despite its size, the valley is one of Norway's driest, with only 282 millimetres of annual rainfall.
Access is via Dividalen road from E6, a long drive to the trailhead at Frihetsli. The Norwegian Trekking Association maintains three unmanned cabins along the trail. This is a place for proper hiking, not a quick stop.