Ristafallet

Undersaker / Halland, Jamtland County, Sweden

About Ristafallet


Hiking Distance: about 400m round trip
Suggested Time: 15 minutes

Date first visited: 2019-07-12
Date last visited: 2019-07-12

Waterfall Latitude: 63.31257
Waterfall Longitude: 13.35122

Waterfall Safety and Common Sense

Ristafallet was the first of three significant waterfalls in a stretch of the drive along the E14 between Östersund and the Swedish border and ultimately to Trondheim.

The falls featured a wide drop of 50m with a 14m drop as it spanned the Indals River (Indalsälva), which was apparently allowed to flow wild and free.

Ristafallet_017_07122019 - Looking across the impressive Ristafallet in the morning light
Looking across the impressive Ristafallet in the morning light

Thus, it was said to have a flow that can vary between 100-400 cubic meters per second, and as you can see from the photo above, power was the operative word here.

Ristafallet was also known as the waterfall Glupafallet in Ronja the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking).

When we made our visit, we could clearly see that it was one of Sweden’s more accessible (and thus popular) waterfalls thanks to a camping and cafe facility right by it.

Experiencing Ristafallet

From the car park (see directions below), we merely had to walk down the road leading past the campsite and towards a lookout within the shade of the surrounding trees.

That was pretty much all there was to our visit though we were cognizant of the risks of falling into the river if we wanted to get a closer look past the fence openings.

Ristafallet_005_07122019 - Looking down towards the Indalsälva from a patio by the cafe at Ristafallet suggesting that there appeared to be another waterfall or rapids further downstream (Nylandsforsen?)
Looking down towards the Indalsälva from a patio by the cafe at Ristafallet suggesting that there appeared to be another waterfall or rapids further downstream (Nylandsforsen?)

When I looked towards the falls from along the fence closer to its brink (and closer to the campground), I couldn’t help but notice that there was wafting mist rising from an unseen half of the opposite end of the falls.

That suggested to me that the falls had two segments split by some kind of rocky island, and that we only saw a fraction of the overall width of the falls.

Naturally, I was curious to see if it was possible to get a look at it, especially since I saw a pole on that island that made me wonder if there used to be a bridge or some kind of infrastructure to get onto that island.

I also noticed that trails continued to descend alongside the Indals River in both directions, including a 650m and 1km path to the Upper and Lower Nylandsforsen rapids.

However, after spending a brief amount of time looking around the immediate vicinity, I didn’t see a bridge nor anything along the river that would have allowed me to get to the other side.

Ristafallet_059_07122019 - Rising mist on the opposite side of the river facing away from me suggested that the rock protrusion in this photo was an island splitting Ristafallet into two segments
Rising mist on the opposite side of the river facing away from me suggested that the rock protrusion in this photo was an island splitting Ristafallet into two segments

So that was pretty much our Ristafallet experience as far as just visiting the falls was concerned.

With hindsight being 20/20, I did notice on the maps that there was a bridge spanning the Indals River at the town of Nyland, and maybe I probably could have driven closer to the other side of Ristafallet to see its other side by going that route.

I’ll have to find out about that if we’re fortunate to come back to explore that option.

Mittnordenleden

I also noticed a sign at the car park mentioning something about Mittnordenleden.

It turned out that this was a former pilgrim’s route that was re-opened in 2015 as it was absorbed into the 564km long St Olavsleden.

This path stretched from Sundsvall, Sweden in the east to Trondheim, Norway in the west.

I’m pretty certain the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim was the major destination point for such travelers on St Olavsleden.

It seemed to be analogous to the manner in which the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela would be the endpoint for pilgrimage walkers across the North of Spain on the Camino de Santiago (St James).

Authorities

Linafallet was near the town and municipality of Åre in Jämtland County, Sweden. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you may want to try the local municipality website.

Ristafallet_003_07112019 - Looking towards the Ristafallet cafe and camping registration facility
Ristafallet_009_07122019 - Walking down to the Ristafallet Campground en route to the Indals River and the waterfall itself
Ristafallet_013_07122019 - First look at the powerful Ristafallet
Ristafallet_020_07122019 - Looking across Ristafallet from the main lookout
Ristafallet_027_07122019 - More direct and less angled look at Ristafallet showing how even in this main segment, there were some segments within this segment
Ristafallet_054_07122019 - Context of other people checking out Ristafallet closer to the edge of the ledge at the main lookout
Ristafallet_056_07122019 - Contextual view of the brink of Ristafallet
Ristafallet_061_07122019 - Walking back up through the Ristafallet Camping to get back up to the car park


Since we made our visit to Ristafallet from Östersund, I’ll describe the driving directions from there.

We basically just drove for nearly 82km along the E14 heading west towards the Norwegian border.

At the end of this nearly 82km stretch (after passing by the town of Nyland), we saw a sign pointing to our left for Ristafallet Camping.

Ristafallet_001_07112019 - The car park for Ristafallet Camping
The car park for Ristafallet Camping

Right after turning left to go onto this access road, we reached the car park, where we had to pay and display the 20 SEK per hour fee (as of our July 2019 visit).

If you happened to be coming from the other direction from the Swedish-Norwegian border at Storlien, we would drive about 79km east on the E14 to the Ristafallet turnoff on the right.

This turnoff was about 4km east of the town of Undersåker.

For geographic context, Östersund was about 101km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Strömsund, 159km (about 2 hours drive) east of Storlien, 263km (about 3.5 hours drive) east of Trondheim, Norway, and 557km (well over 6 hours drive) northwest of Stockholm.

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Tagged with: are, undersaker, halland, jamtland, sweden, waterfall, lappland, lapland, ostersund, camping



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