A broad valley town ringed by mountains, where a huge Viking burial field, a royal mountain road and Norway's wild musk oxen frame one of its great outdoor playgrounds.
Oppdal sits in a broad, open valley at about 545 metres, ringed by rounded mountains, with the river Driva running through. People have lived here since the Iron Age: beside the village lies the Vang burial field, one of Northern Europe's largest, where Viking families raised some 900 grave mounds. A white wooden church went up in 1651, and a royal road over the mountains carried kings and pilgrims past. The railway arrived in 1921 and opened the peaks to visitors. Today this mountain town of about 4,600 people (2024) is one of Norway's great year-round outdoor bases — skiing in winter, musk-ox safaris in summer.
Oppdal grew up in a wide, sunlit valley that has fed people well for thousands of years, a natural crossroads between the coast and the inland. That long prosperity is written into the ground at Vang, just above the village, where some 900 grave mounds and stone cairns crowd a 700-metre strip of hillside. Most were raised in the Viking Age — roughly the years 800 to 1000 — by farming families burying their dead; it is one of the largest burial grounds in all of Northern Europe. Beside it stands the white, cross-shaped wooden church of 1651. The valley still works the land much as ever: Oppdal keeps more sheep than any other Norwegian municipality, around 45,000 grazing the peaks each summer, and quarries the fine grey slate that roofs buildings across the country.
South of town the valley climbs toward Dovrefjell, the high plateau that has always been Norway's great barrier between north and south. Medieval kings ordered that shelter be kept for anyone crossing, and a guesthouse has stood at Kongsvold since the 1100s, winning official status as a mountain inn in 1670. In December 1718 Norwegian soldiers burned it down to deny shelter to a Swedish army pushing over the mountains during the Great Northern War — the same doomed invasion whose retreating soldiers would freeze to death by the thousand that winter; rebuilt two years later, it still takes in travellers today, beside a small garden of hardy alpine flowers. The railway finally tamed the crossing in 1921, linking Oppdal to Oslo and Trondheim and bringing the first tourists.
They still come for two wildernesses. To the south, Dovrefjell shelters Norway's musk oxen — shaggy, prehistoric-looking beasts brought here between 1932 and 1953, now around 200 strong — and guided musk-ox safaris on foot are the region's signature outing. To the west rise the sharper peaks of Trollheimen. Above the town, meanwhile, ski slopes that opened with a single lift in 1952 have grown into one of the country's largest, turning a farming valley into a year-round playground.
The making of Oppdal
The Vang burial field
Some 900 Viking-age grave mounds crowd the hillside above the village — one of the largest burial grounds in Northern Europe.
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Oppdal Church
A white, cross-shaped wooden church consecrated in 1651, standing at Vang among the ancient graves above the village.
Dovrefjell
The vast mountain plateau and national park south of town, home to Norway's roughly 200 musk oxen and the famous safaris to see them.
Trollheimen
The sharper alpine range west of town, holding Oppdal's highest peak, Storskrymten (1,983 m) — prime hiking country.
Kongsvold Fjeldstue
A mountain inn on the old royal road over Dovrefjell, sheltering travellers since the 1100s, with an alpine flower garden alongside.
Oppdal Ski Center
One of Norway's largest downhill areas, grown from a single lift opened in 1952 — the heart of the town's winter.
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