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Buarbreen glacier: where the ice is now
The ice at the head of the Buer valley is about 600 metres further back than in 1997, and 67 metres of that went in 2026 alone. The marked path ends at the lower arm, with a river you cannot cross between you and the ice.
Send it on hardanger.shop/guide/en/buarbreen-glacier
It is the river, not a fence, that stands between you and the ice.
- Further back than in 1997about 600 mNVE, glacier 3131, our subtraction
- Climb on the marked path436 mut.no, about an hour and a half in
- The marked path ends atNedre Buarbreenut.no. Onto the ice, you go with a guide.
Where the ice is
Buarbreen is “an eastern outlet glacier of the ice cap Søndre Folgefonna”, says NVE, the Norwegian water and energy directorate, which lists it as Buerbreen. Its front has been measured since 1900, with gaps. Each year someone walks out from a fixed point, a cairn, a painted mark or a bolt, and measures in the same direction as the year before.
Every page that sends you there writes “the glacier” as if it stays put. It does not. The figures below are NVE’s. They show how far the front lay from where it stood when the series restarted in 1917. Plus is further out, minus is further back.
| Year | The front (metres) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1933 | +218 | The advance around 1930, says ut.no |
| 1953 | −616 | |
| 1997 | −698 | After the advance of the 1990s |
| 2007 | −918 | |
| 2016 | −1029 | |
| 2025 | −1234 | |
| 2026 | −1301 | 67 metres back in this year alone |
From 1997 to 2026 that is 603 metres. The subtraction is ours, not a sentence from NVE. The stretch from 2007 to 2025 NVE worked out itself, under two photographs of the glacier in its 2026 fact sheet: “The glacier retreated 316 metres in this period.” That is eighteen years.
If the photograph that brought you here is from 2016, the front then lay 272 metres further out. Same table, same subtraction.
One caveat. The years 1988 to 1995 were not measured in the field. NVE worked them out from maps of 1981 and 2006.
The longer story is the national park visitor centre’s: a hundred years ago the arm reached almost down to the highest farms. In the 1890s a hotel was built at Buer, 250 metres above the sea. The wind from a huge avalanche in 1897 tore it off its foundations.
The walk you are actually doing
You start at Buer, eight kilometres up from Odda by the visitor centre and ut.no. The guiding company says nine. You can see the glacier from the car park.
Then comes the number that confuses everyone. The path to the lower arm has 436 metres of climb in total on ut.no, the Norwegian Trekking Association’s route site, and you are there in about an hour and a half. The same site has another route, up to Øvre Buerbreen, with 607 metres. That one is not marked: “Det er merket sti kun til Nedre Buerbreen”, the marked path goes only to the lower arm. Up there, it says, you need experience and skill.
The Fjord Norway listing gives 600 metres of climb, 3 km each way and four hours. That looks more like the upper route than the path most people walk. The blogs at the top of Google say “over 420m” and “500 to 600 meters”. Most of them do not say what year they walked it.
Allow three hours there and back, says the visitor centre. The path gets steeper towards the end. On some rock steps there are ropes to hold, and you cross several bridges and a suspension bridge. ut.no says the stretch can be hard for some, is fine for most, and that children love it. Wear good boots and bring a packed lunch, says the visitor centre.
Where the path ends
At Nedre Buarbreen the path ends at a resting place. Between it and the ice runs the meltwater river. On ut.no’s page, the river “som ikke er mulig å gå over”, that cannot be crossed, separates the glacier from the spot where people stop for a break. From there you see the glacier calve, pieces falling off the ice, several times a day.
It is the river, not a fence, that stands between you and the ice. And the front on the other side lay 67 metres further back at the 2026 measurement than the year before.
“Ikkje gå nær breen”, do not go near the glacier, says Fjord Norway. “Breen er i konstant rørsle”: it is always moving.
If you want to stand on the ice, you go with a guide. Hardanger Breføring goes at 10 and 14 in summer. The day is six hours on its listing: about three with the guide, and an hour and a half each way on your own to and from the car park. Fjord Tours sells a guided walk at the same times, from 1 July to 31 August, and tells you to “estimate at least a 1.5 hours walk to the glacier cabin where you meet your guide”.
The age is not the same on both. The guiding company says 13 and grades the walk as easy. Fjord Tours says 12 on the 10:00 walk and 15 on the 14:00 walk. The price appears as two different figures on the same listing. Ask whoever takes the booking, and book there.
The barrier and the car
Turn off road 13 and follow the signs to Buer. Drive to the barrier and the car park at the end of the road, says Fjord Norway.
You pay on the way out, at a machine, by bank card. ut.no says 230 kroner and puts 2024 after it. Fjord Norway says 185 kroner with no year, and the blogs 150. Three prices from different years. We print none of them as today’s.
We found no bus. ut.no says “Adkomst med egen bil”, access by your own car. That does not mean no bus runs, but we have not seen a timetable that reaches Buer.
When
Fjord Norway gives the end of May to October for an average year. ut.no says May to October. The guided walks are summer: Fjord Tours from 1 July to 31 August, the guiding company just “Sommar”.
In winter the valley is dark. “Kvar vinter forsvinn sola herifrå i fleire månader i strekk”, says the visitor centre: every winter the sun leaves for months at a time.
On Tripadvisor someone asks about the walk in April. We found no official page that answers it, so we do not answer for them. The season they print starts in May.
The other glaciers
Buarbreen is the glacier you walk to on your own from Odda and see from across the river. If you want a whole day on the ice, that is the blue-ice walk from Jondal, in Folgefonna in a day. Bondhusbrea on the west side is another arm of Folgefonna, in Bondhusvatnet after 1 September.
Rhuan has seen Folgefonna “from the road or from Buer”. We have not walked the path to the glacier for this piece, and we have not stood on the ice. What we have done is put NVE’s table beside the pages that send you there. None of them says where the ice is.
From the shop
The icefall on the tote bag is drawn from Folgefonna, not from Buarbreen, and it stays where it is.
We have no physical shop in Odda. What you order is printed to order and sent by post.
Sources
Checked 7 November 2026:
- 3131 Buerbreen, NVE, front variation 1900–2026. The series restarts in 1917. The subtractions 1997–2026 (603 m) and 2016–2026 (272 m) are ours.
- Oversikt over norske breer, NVE Fakta 1/2026. The photographs of Buerbreen in 2007 and 2025 are by Hallgeir Elvehøy and Mark Reysoo.
- Front variation measurements, NVE, updated 22 October 2024. How the front is measured.
- ut.no: Buarbreen Folgefonna Nasjonalpark and Opp til Øvre Buerbreen, the second posted by a private walker. Neither is dated.
- Buardalen, Folgefonna National Park visitor centre, undated.
- Buerdalen – forbløffande brelandskap, Fjord Norway, undated.
- Guida breføring på Buarbreen, Hardanger Breføring on Visit Hardangerfjord, and Odda glacier Buarbreen, Fjord Tours. The guiding company’s listing carries both “Kr 1090,- per person” and “Pris frå 595”, so we print no price.
- Blogs, read on 6 November 2026 as leads, not sources: Norway Explained, Expert World Travel and Roads and Rivers.
- Rhuan, 28 September 2026, on seeing Folgefonna from the road or from Buer. The drawing at the top is the Folgefonna / Vestland design, 18 September 2026.