Scandinavia

Is there much/any caving in scandinavia? Im searching for info, so anything anyone has would be appreciated. Hopefully I will be going next summer if I get the travel scholarship i'm applying for and i think i'd like to do a little caving while i'm there.

Thanks in advance

There isn't a huge amount of caving there.

Sweden has quite a lot of caves but nothing parcticularly insipiring/long/deep. Don't know of any caves longer than about 3 Km's. Some of the caves are meant to be quite well decorated though.

Norway has a fair bit of karst terrain but not many explored caves (good for an expedition then i guess....). The county of 'Rana' has most of the caves (over 1000). There are several systems upto 3 or so km long, while the longest is the Okshola-Kristihola system at 11km. The 620 metre deep Raggejavrerairge cave is meant to be good through trip.

For more info see "the underground atlas".

Huw.

Raggejavreraige has one big pitch which is not quite vertical and difficult to pull-down, so many do it with two teams. It is I think the furthest-north deep cave in the world and likely the lowest in elevation - the exit is only two metres above sealevel. Unless much has changed, the jump-off village of Musken can only be reached by boat.

A decade or so ago there were a series of British expeditions to South Nordland which were reported on in the caving press. There is of course a Norwegian caving organization which can be contacted for details for any visit contemplated. It is an expensive country to visit.

Thanks for the comments, we've decided against doing any caving while we're over there, although it would be fun, we're trying to keep costs low and essentially backpack across Sweden and Norway camping as much as possible. So carrying caving kit with us would be rather expensive in terms of weight and space. It should be an awesome trip even without disappearing down a hole.