Lom

The name Lom comes from Loar, the flat land by the site of the stave church, and the village itself takes its name, Fossbergom, from Prestfossen, the waterfall where the Bøvra pours into the Otta. The first church here was a small wooden post church built in the 11th century. Around 1160–1170 it was torn down and replaced by a larger stave church, whose timber has been dated by its tree rings to 1157–58; the building was restored and enlarged in the 17th century by a builder who also worked at Vågå and Ringebu.

For centuries the valley lay on a trade route across the mountains between the west coast and the inland valleys: fish and salt came east, and grain went west to the coast. The municipality's coat of arms shows three water scoops, once used to irrigate the farmland.

Tourism came with the climbers. In 1850 three men from Lom — the guide Steinar Sulheim, the teacher Lars Arnesen and the church warden Ingebrigt Flotten — made the first ascent of Galdhøpiggen. A road was built up to the Juvvass plateau in 1936, and in 1938 the Sognefjell road opened across the mountains to the Sognefjord, making Lom a summer junction between eastern and western Norway. Jotunheimen National Park was established in 1980, and the Norwegian Mountain Museum opened in the village in 1994.

Lom's identity is bound up with its mountains. Seven of Norway's ten highest peaks, Galdhøpiggen and Glittertind among them, lie within the municipality, and more than half of Jotunheimen National Park. The Norwegian Mountain Museum tells the story of people in the high country, including the first mountain tourists, with prehistoric skis, shoes and a bow preserved in the ice, and it serves as the visitor centre for the Jotunheimen, Breheimen and Reinheimen national parks.

The stave church is the village's landmark and still its parish church, one of the largest of its kind and among the very few to keep its medieval dragon-head roof crest. The church holds 17th- and 18th-century paintings by the local artist Eggert Munch and carved acanthus work on the pulpit, and the bunad, the folk costume, is worn on Constitution Day and at weddings.

Galdhøpiggen was first climbed by local men, one of them a guide, and guided summit trips across the glacier still run in the main season. A small glacier ski centre by the Juvvass plateau, the highest in Scandinavia, usually runs from late May into October, and the Sognefjell road, a national tourist road, brings a steady stream of visitors through in summer.

Fossbergom, at 382 metres above sea level in the Otta valley, had 863 people at the start of 2025. It is the administrative centre of Lom Municipality and its main population centre, and a large share of the residents work in tourism, commerce and services. Other settlements in the municipality include Garmo, Bøverdalen and Lia.

The year has two rhythms. From May to September the mountain roads open, the bakery, cafés, campsites and lodges fill, and traffic heading between eastern and western Norway passes through the roundabout at the centre of the village. From autumn to spring the Sognefjell road is closed, the road up to the Juvvass plateau shuts, and Lom returns to being a quiet rural community.

Daily services — the shops, the municipal offices and the church — are concentrated in the village, and longer journeys mean the 60-km trip down the valley to the railway at Otta.

Lom lies in the upper Gudbrandsdal country, the valley that gave its name to Gudbrandsdalsost, the most popular kind of brunost, the brown whey cheese. The modern firm, rich version is attributed to the milkmaid Anne Hov, who in 1863 began adding cream to the whey and boiling it down in an iron pot at a mountain farm near Gålå.

Everyday food here is that of inland Norway: lefse, a soft flatbread made from potato, milk or cream and flour, and home dishes such as fårikål, the mutton and cabbage stew counted as the national dish, in autumn, and kjøttkaker, meat patties of ground beef and onion in brown sauce.

The village bakery, just past the roundabout, serves sweet and savoury baking, with outdoor seating looking over the rapids. With few shops in the mountains, the village is the place to buy bread and supplies before heading into Jotunheimen, and in summer the cafés fill with travellers crossing between eastern and western Norway.