The Sjoa is a

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (Jevnaker Municipality and Lunner Municipality were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken ( ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The long river runs through the municipalities of

Vågå Vågå () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of ...

and

Sel __NOTOC__ SEL may refer to: *Signalling Equipment Ltd, a trading name used by the British toy manufacturer J & L Randall *Finnish Food Workers' Union, a trade union in Finland *Left Ecology Freedom (''Sinistra Ecologia Libertà''), Italian political ...

and it provides the outlet from lake

Gjende Gjende or Gjendin is a lake in Vågå Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Jotunheimen mountain range and also inside Jotunheimen National Park. The proglacial lake shows typical characteristics of glacial formation, bei ...

at Gjendesheim in the

Jotunheimen Jotunheimen (; "the home of the Jötunn") is a mountainous area of roughly in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all located in the Jotunheimen mountains, in ...

mountains of

's Jotunheim National Park. The river flows eastward through the Sjodalen valley and Heidal valley into the

Gudbrandsdalslågen The Gudbrandsdalslågen (or simply ''Lågen'') is a river which flows through the Gudbrandsdal valley in Innlandet county, Norway. The long river runs through a large valley in Eastern Norway before emptying into Mjøsa, the largest lake in Norw ...

river at the village of Sjoa. South of the village of Randsverk, the river flows through ''Ridderspranget'' which is a

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

named after a Norwegian myth.

Rafting, kayaking and fishing

The river is used for kayaking, rafting and fishing. Thirteen deaths have occurred in the river, from 1989 to 2010. This includes four deaths involving a group of tourists in various

inflatable An inflatable is an object that can be inflated with a gas, usually with air, but hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen are also used. One of several advantages of an inflatable is that it can be stored in a small space when not inflated, since inflat ...

" catarafts", on 24 July 2010 (a national newspaper claimed that at that time the level of the river was above a safe level for rafting).

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

, July 25, 2010 page 10 There are several companies offering rafting, kayaking, riverboarding and other activities in Sjoa and the surrounding area. Some parts of the river are impossible to raft. Some parts are blocked by large rocks which the river flows underneath. These areas are considered "death traps" by the local commercial rafting providers.

References

External links

Sjoa Raftingsenter NWR
Rafting and riverboarding in the Sjoa area.
Sjoa Rafting
White Water River Adventures in Norway.
GoRafting.no
White Water River Adventures in the Sjoa River
Sjoafestivalen
Festival in and by Sjoa Vågå Sel, Norway Rivers of Innlandet {{Norway-river-stub