The original road used to be closed for several months every winter due to snow, but this has now been circumvented by raising the roadbed well above the terrain when building the new road. The wind now clears the snow off the road surface and the low incline embankments replace the previous railings which caught the snow. Constructing the road in this way was a major feat of engineering in this fragile high altitude landscape. 

In 2016 the new road won the Beautiful Roads Award (Vakre vegers pris) and the jury praised it as an outstanding example of a successful marriage between technical requirements and great sensitivity towards undulating open landscape.