About Vidfoss
Vidfoss (or Vidfossen) was the third waterfall we saw within Oddadalen (the Odda Valley) as we were heading north towards the town of Odda.
It was an attractively wide yet tall waterfall (allegedly 300m in height) that possessed an interesting shape quite unlike any of the other waterfalls we had seen before.

It appeared to fan out midway down its drop then spread out as if it was shaped like an off-centered broom.
We literally saw this waterfall less than 15 minutes after leaving the famous Låtefossen, but we felt this waterfall more than held its own compared to its more famous neighbor.
Experiencing Vidfossen
Julie and I made our visit after noticing Vidfoss making its conspicuous tumble while driving north on the Rv13 towards Odda.
Once we were compelled to make a stop for it, we then had to find a place to pull over (see directions below).
On our first visit in June 2005, there seemed to be a few options to pull over and take a look.

However, on our most recent visits in June and July 2019, there seemed to be fewer places to stop (see directions below).
Back on that first visit, Julie and I could get out of the car, cross the road, and walk onto a grassy field that seemed to be part of a farm.
It was from the middle of this field that we got the photo you see at the top of this page.
On our subsequent trip, we actually had to park further down the Rv13 at an informal pullout, then I had to walk along the narrow road (no shoulder mind you) before getting a good look at it.
As you can see from the photo above, I didn’t quite make it all the way back to the same spot we had seen it on our first trip 14 years prior.
Some Vidfossen Properties

According to the maps, Vidfoss was fed by highland lakes such as Midtstolsvatnet as well as other small lakes and tarns.
All of these sources were fed by the melting glacial ice of the vast Folgefonn Glacier (Folgefonna).
Thus, I believe the falls ought to have reliable year-round flow though its volume can noticeably vary as the Summer wears on.
We witnessed this for ourselves when we came back to Vidfossen while passing through in late July a month after our visit earlier on in the trip.
That said, I have seen photos of the falls in lesser flow, so it could very well be that we happened to have caught it at peak flow during our first visit in June 2005.

It might have also been aided by the fact that it had been raining in the days prior to and during our first visit.
That said, on our second and third visits, Norway had a seemingly unusually high precipitation Summer in 2019 (while the rest of Europe was suffering from a long heat wave).
Yet, it seemed to have less flow than on our first visit in June 2005.
So there really isn’t a hard and fast rule about its behavior other than it can diminish fairly quickly without sustained precipitation.
Finally, a quicky thing about this waterfall was that unlike most of the other waterfalls through Norway, it didn’t seem to be normally called “Vidfossen”.

In other words, I had noticed the definite article “-en” at the end of the word tended to be absent in its name.
This convention was reflected in Norgesglasset (now called Norgeskart, but I still do not know for sure why that was the case.
Regardless, it can go either way how the falls can be referred to so I tend to use them interchangeably.
Why Fewer Pullouts?
It surprised me to see that there were more railings and walls erected along this stretch of the Rv13 through Oddadalen.
These barricades tended to cover up old pullouts and openings, and this made experiencing waterfalls like Vidfossen more difficult.

I didn’t understand why this happened until I spoke with a local during a hike on a different excursion.
She told me that over the years, tourists have been using their yards as toilets, which they found to be very disrespectful.
So they had to take matters into their own hands to manage the problem, and this was how they did it.
While WCs can be fairly infrequent through rural stretches like this, the respectful thing to do would be to use gas station and restaurant stops as opportunities to use the facilities.
Some reserves may have WCs as well, but nature calls are definitely frowned upon in Norway as their attitudes towards their land definitely differ from what most tourists may think.
Authorities
Vidfoss resides near the town and municipality of Odda in Hordaland County, Norway. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website or Facebook page.
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