Wind

Best: W-NW & E // OK: SE

The wind next to the car park of this location continues to puzzle me. It is hard to predict. If you intend to ride next to the road on the bottom of the valley then anything a little bit more easterly than SE or pure NW works fine. True westerlies seem to be best. On NW and other westerlies there is often a nice breeze (50-70% of the yr forecast) on the flat part next to the car park offering a no walk kite experience.

With west it  does not tend to be gusty but the wind is a bit up and down.

With easterlies the wind is often much better and stronger close to the Valevatn lake and the exposed flats next to it. On true SE the wind at the car park and to the west of the car park is on and off in 5 minutes intervals (very unpleasant). 

If you walk up 1/3 the hill to Grohei there is even on SE winds very constant conditions and the rest of the hillside up to 1000m at Grohei is achieved with no effort. The Yr forecast for Grohei is accurate.

Level

Beginner- Medium-Advanced

Ride

The flat areas next to the road and lake offer some fun terrain with minor hills to jump off and sometimes limited powder bowls. Especially towards the east along the Valevatn shores there are nice small hills to test your terrain kiting skills. The Grohei plateau often offers fantastic powder bowls in the narrow  cleaves and the little valleys. There are very few erratic blocks up there but a few steep sided valleys that are sometimes in the wind shadow and need to be avoided. Beautiful views from up there.  The Grohei ascend can be used as a pathway to kite to the Sandvatn hytte

Dangers:

Don’t kite on Valevatn if you are not sure that the ice is safe . The lake is heavily regulated and the inflow to the lake is close by. Keep away from the electricity line to the south of the road. Phone signal is OK.

Getting there:

Park at the Lortabu car park, get out of the car and kite. If you want to kite at Grohei on lighter SE wind (<8 m/s) than make sure to walk up at least 150 height meters from the valley floor before rigging up (indicated on map). Anything else is often a total waste of time.