About Navitfossen and Roykfossen
Navitfossen was a waterfall that we used as an excuse to break up the long drive between Tromsø and Alta.
In Northern Norway, getting from place to place requires long distance driving so we needed waterfalling stops like this.
That said, while we anticipated doing a quick detour to visit this waterfall, I managed to extend the excursion to an even better waterfall – Røykfossen!
According to the topo maps, from what I could tell, the Navitfossen had a cumulative drop of around 15m on the Navitelva.
We did a pretty short 500m round trip hike and scramble to better experience Navitfossen, which we’ll get into shortly.
Around 1.2km further upstream, the Navitelva made a roughly 30m drop over the Roykfossen (or more accurately, Røykfossen – the Smoke Falls).
I’ll describe that hike later on in this page.
The Navitfossen Experience
After finding a clearing across from the Navitfoss Camping (see directions below), we started on the short hike leading down to the Navitfossen.
The walk started off down a rough tractor path before we noticed clearings and narrower footpaths branching off leading closer to Navitelva.
The first of these paths brought us to the brink of Navitfossen, where we also spotted a few upper tiers closer to the road bridge.
With a little more careful maneuvering on the narrow use trails around the brink of the falls, we managed to get some in-your-face views of the wide and loud waterfall.
We noticed across the river that there was a flume where logs could have been floated down to the Navuotna (the Sami name of the inlet the Navitelva emptied into) to avoid the inevitable damage had the logs gone over the turbulent waterfall.
The scrambling paths eventually descended steeply to the shores of Navuotna (also called Kvænangen in Norwegian), where the path converged with the rough tractor path that we had ditched earlier.
It was from down here that I managed to get the most direct views of Navitfossen though I wasn’t keen on scrambling any further upstream.
Apparently there also used to be a sawmill down here that once harnessed the power of Navitelva to manipulate the timber came via the flumes we saw.
However, we didn’t see it during our visit in July 2019, and it made me wonder if had been destroyed over the years.
The Røykfossen Experience
After having our fill of Navitfossen, I then went on a hike towards Roykfossen.
I started off by walking back across the road bridge (getting a top down view of Navitfossen in the process) before reaching the turnoff on the left.
At this turnoff, there was a fairly large clearing, which is where I’d imagine was meant for public parking for those wishing to hike further upstream.
Although the signs here pointed the way to Geitfjelltinden (with no mention of the other waterfall), I kept pushing forward knowing that as long as the trail followed the Navitelva, I’d find the falls.
Roughly 150m from the trailhead, I noticed a private house on the right as well as a signed trail junction thereafter.
I kept right at this junction to continue hiking on the main trail.
However, I did explore the other path, which led some 50m towards a stream gauge.
Back on the main trail, it continued to slope gently (hardly noticeable) as the trail eventually followed Navitelva after around 300m from the junction.
After going over a granite section, the trail then started climbing for the next 200m or so before the trail finally started to flatten out.
At that point, I had gone over 600m from the trailhead, and I had finally arrived at an overlook right at the cliff overlooking the loud and impressive Røykfossen.
This overlook was my turnaround point though the trail did continue further towards the top of the falls and ultimately to the summit of Geitfjelltinden.
As much as I wanted to savor the experience at this overlook, I had to make haste because the mosquitos here were pretty bad.
In fact, my haste also included the hiking trail where they seemed to take their shots at me whenever I stopped moving!
All told, the out-and-back hike was on the order of 2.3km round trip or so, and it took me around 50 minutes.
In total, the whole excursion that encompassed both Navitfossen and Røykfossen was about 2.8km in total, and I spent about 90 minutes away from the car.
Authorities
Navitfossen and Roykfossen both reside in the Kvænangen Municipality near Burfjord in Troms County, Norway. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
Navitfossen sat between Storslett and Alta (though closer to Storslett).
So I’ll describe the driving directions from both places since we stayed in Storslett in 2005 and we stayed in Alta in 2019.
From Storslett, we drove on the E6 east for about 50km to a turnoff for Kvænangsbotn on the right.
We then took this turnoff, which went onto a potholed unpaved road for the next 8km.
Eventually after crossing a bridge over Navitelva, we found a clearing on the left side of the unpaved road right across from the Navitfoss Camping.
This clearing was where we parked the car.
Also note that about 200m before the Navitfoss Camping area (and before the bridge over Navitelva), there was another clearing and potential for parking space on the right.
Overall, this drive would take under an hour.
Coming in the other direction from Alta, we drove west on the E6 for about 114km.
Right after crossing the bridge over Sørstraumen, we then turned left onto the access road signed for Kvænangsbotn.
Then, we’d follow this potholed unpaved road as described above.
Overall, this drive would take under 2 hours.
For some geographical context, Storslett was 164km (over 2 hours drive) west of Alta, 228km (over 3 hours drive without a ferry) east of Tromsø, 290km (under 4 hours drive) northwest of Kautokeino, 318km (about 4.5 hours drive) north of Narvik, and 371km (over 5 hours drive) southwest of Honningsvåg.
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Frontal view from near the top of the falls while also revealing some kind of mill
Sweep from the bridge to the top down view of the falls
Short sweep covering both segments of the falls while also zooming in on each one
Right to left sweep at the mouth of the river revealing a front view of the falls
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