Industry News
Folgefonna’s summer ski area revival as a terrain park has been shelved. Norway’s former summer ski hub at Fonna Glacier — long considered one of Europe’s most reliable glacier training grounds — will not open its planned terrain park this summer after heavy rain and rapid snowmelt destabilized conditions on the mountain.
The update was confirmed this week by former operations manager Svein Olav Espeland, who is behind the revival of the summer ski resort. Espeland wrote on Facebook that “due to a watery snowmelt in recent days, it is impossible to open Folgefonna Activity Park this season.”
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Espeland later clarified that the issue was not heat-related, but the result of “heavy rain and wind,” which accelerated melt conditions and left insufficient snow to safely build or maintain the planned park features. The decision is another setback for efforts to revive structured skiing activity at Folgefonna, which has undergone a dramatic collapse in recent years.
For decades, the Folgefonna glacier — often referred to simply as “Fonna” — was one of the last places in Europe where winter conditions reliably extended into summer. National ski teams trained on its glacier slopes, and freestyle riders used its terrain park as a key off-season training base.
But after years of financial pressure and operational instability, the commercial ski operation entered decline. The lift infrastructure serving the glacier ski area collapsed last year and has since been dismantled, and the site has effectively ceased functioning as a conventional summer ski resort.
In its place, Espeland had been developing a scaled-back revival concept under the name Folgefonna Activity Park. The plan focused on building a small, controlled terrain park lower down the mountain at around 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) above sea level, where wind-loaded snowfields tend to collect more consistently than on the rapidly retreating glacier above.
The initial concept called for a 150-by-100-meter terrain park served by a conveyor lift, with potential for future expansion into a larger learning area and, in later phases, even a chairlift-served ski zone. That plan now appears on hold.
Despite the setback for freestyle skiing, not all activity at Folgefonna has been cancelled. The Fonna Telemark Camp scheduled for 18–22 June is still expected to go ahead, taking advantage of whatever snow conditions remain in the high alpine terrain.
The broader future of skiing at Folgefonna remains uncertain. The glacier itself has been steadily retreating for decades, and former staff have previously warned that access routes have shifted so dramatically that parts of the old infrastructure are no longer usable in summer.
