Where to ski in Norway: an ultimate guide to Europe’s underrated slopes

I still remember my first day on Norway‘s pistes. Having settled on where to ski in Norway, I found myself packing up the Kvikk Lunsj wafers and sweet brown brunost cheese sandwiches at the glassy Juvet Landscape Hotel, deep in the Sunnmøre Alps. Then the slow ascent, with skins on our splitboard skis, up to the peak at Mefjellet: torturous in some ways, looking at all that glinting Care Bear snow all the way up, but also a deliciously tantric act of meditation and delayed gratification. I remember the views from the top, looking across the Storfjord to a world of model-railway peaks, and then the ecstasy of strapping my skis together to make a snowboard, and eventually letting gravity draw us inexorably towards all that powder.

The key thing to remember when it comes to skiing in Norway is that it’s not the Alps. Yes, there are excellent resorts, but they tend to be lower and smaller, albeit every bit as snowsure as the highest Alpine resorts. There’s much more of a culture of ski-touring – skinning upwards, Nordic-style, and whooshing downwards – which goes hand in hand with the Norwegian philosophy of the friluftsliv (“open-air life”). Away from lifts and deep into nature, this type of skiing opens up some wildly beautiful corners, especially along the country’s long, fjord-veined coastline – and rare opportunities like adrenalised summit-to-sea descents. Even in the resorts, though, skiing in Norway tends to throw up unique moments, from deep-nature saunas to fjord plunges; night skiing under floodlights and star-gazing under the more ephemeral Northern Lights. Below are just some of the best spots to seek out when looking for where to ski in Norway.

Sunnmøre Alps

Getty Images

Sunnmøre Alps

The Sunnmøre Alps, east of coastal Ålesund in central Norway, are a mecca for fjord-side ski touring, with scores of beautiful peaks around iconic waterscapes like the Hjørundfjord, Storfjord and Geirangerfjord. There’s a ski resort at Stranda, with seven lifts and 20 runs with beautiful views over the Storfjord (one iconic fjord-view jump has appeared in many a ski and snowboard video) – but many locals take the lift up and ski-tour from there. Elsewhere, there’s a vast collection of little-visited peaks to choose from – we had one particularly epic day at Blæja, on the range’s southwestern corner – which is just one reason to get an experienced guide. Uteguiden is a leading local outfit, with all-electric vehicles just one part of the brand’s impeccable eco-credentials. They can arrange longer trips that take in the area’s exceptional array of places to stay: from the modernist deep-nature pods of the Juvet Landscape Hotel, which was the main location in Alex Garland’s robot thriller Ex Machina, to the turf-roofed Storfjord Hotel and the gothic fairytale Hotel Union Øye, both operated by pioneering local travel company 62°Nord.