Vinjakula

Access: FV 503. Parking Veen Camping.Duration: 5 hrs.

VIEW FILM FROM VINJAKULA

With its summit at 907 meters, Vinjakula is the highest point in Magma Geopark. It is located in the northern part of the geopark that is dominated by old gneissic rocks. One of the starting points to walk up the mountain is at Veen, which is on a flat, grassy area between two lakes. This is an end moraine, composed of loose material left behind when the last ice sheet melted about 12.000 years ago. 

As you get higher, there are more and more outcrops of solid rock. These rocks are gneisses that have a striped appearance – a foliation. This foliation dips gently to the east all the way to the summit. These gneisses were originally a large granite that became squashed and stretched in the root zone of a mountain chain about 1000 million years ago. This root zone extends for at least as far as you can see in all directions from the summit. 1000 million years ago there were mountains here, similar to the Himalayas today. The gneisses were several tens of kilometers below the tops of the mountain. Gradual uplift and erosion have exposed what the roots of the Himalayas look like!