Faroe Islands · FO

Blankeskaalefjeld

Blankeskaalefjeld is the steep mountain wall that rises directly above Blankskáli, a deserted settlement on the windswept southwest coast of Kalsoy in the northern Faroe Islands. The old Danish spelling on maps corresponds to the Faroese Blankskáli-fjall, the high ground that towers over the only village ever to have existed on Kalsoy's forbidding west side. This is not a summit you tick off on a marked trail with a car park and a sign. It belongs to a wild, roadless corner of the archipelago, and reaching its base means a real mountain walk from the small ferry port of Syðradalur. What draws people here is the story carved into these slopes: in 1809 an avalanche thundered down from this very mountain into the village below, a disaster that emptied Blankskáli for good. For fit, weather-wise hikers with a taste for remote landscapes and Faroese rural history, the peak and the lost village beneath it make a haunting half-day or day excursion, looking out across Leirvíksfjørður to the island of Eysturoy.