Chapter 12: Hiking Trolltunga in a Hailstorm

Our Experience Hiking Trolltunga: From Clear Skies to a Sudden Hailstorm.

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Having watched YouTube videos about hiking Trolltunga and gone to bed early the night before, we felt well-rested and as prepared as we could be on the morning of our most difficult excursion.

During the off-season months, October through May, it’s strongly advised and sometimes required, to hire a professional guide for this hike due to snow and ice. Since we were going towards the end of the off-season, in mid-May (and we’re hard-headed), we decided we could make the trek on our own and opted not to join a guided group.

Not fully knowing what we were in for on the notorious hike, there was a sense of nervousness at dinner the night before as we speculated about whether we should have gotten a guide. All three of us eventually came to the consensus that we’d be fine, but we decided to watch YouTube videos to gain as much information about the hike as we could.

To give you some perspective on the difficulty of Trolltunga, here are the numbers: it’s over twelve miles round trip with about 4,000 feet of elevation gain. Up to this point, our longest hike had been 5 miles with around 2,000 feet of elevation gain, so this was more than twice as difficult as anything we’d encountered on the trip. What we didn’t realize was that nearly half of the excursion would be through snow.

Cautiously excited, we loaded up the car with our hiking gear and took off for the trailhead. It was a cold, forty-degree morning, and the sky was hidden by ominous gray clouds.

The road to the parking lot was an extremely narrow switchback, with only a short stone wall serving as the only barrier between the road and a fall hundreds of feet down the cliff. After my accidental off-roading adventure the day before, I was white-knuckling this drive the entire way. Thankfully, there were no oncoming cars on our way up, because I’m not sure how we would have let anyone pass. There was barely room for one car at certain points along the drive.

After nervously navigating the winding mountain road for what felt like an eternity, we finally made it to the parking lot and the start of the hike.

Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin is the perfect musical representation for this journey. 

Here. We. Go.

The landscape starts out rocky, barren, and brown. I imagine it’s greener in the summer, but at that time of year it looked exactly how Immigrant Song sounds. It didn’t take long before we hit the steep inclines, winding our way up endless stone staircases. Despite being sore from the hike the day before, we were moving pretty quickly. We even passed several guided groups that were stopping for breaks along the seemingly never-ending climb. Suckers.

We finally reached the top of the staircases and crossed a flat, rocky stretch before quickly encountering a long uphill stretch completely covered in snow. After slipping a few times, it became clear that taking short steps and walking in others’ footsteps was the easiest way to go, but it felt like we were now hiking at a snail’s pace.

As we reached the top of what felt like another endless uphill section, we realized the summit was merely a false peak, and we’d have to continue even farther through the snowy incline. Fortunately, by this time the ominous gray clouds had dissipated and the sun came out.

Contrary to hiking in the snow, we started to get hot and sweaty from the sun beating down and the relentless uphill climb, so we de-layered and took off our jackets to cool down. All things considered, we were still moving quickly up the mountain, continuing to pass guided tours. Suckers.

We finally made our way to the edge of a cliff, with a stunning view of the fjord below and the distant snow-capped mountains. The weather was perfect, so we stopped to take some pictures and enjoy the scenery. At this point, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.

As we continued winding between rocky stretches and long, snow-covered paths, we suddenly encountered a narrow, snowy switchback along a cliff. We descended a steep, slippery section, then climbed back uphill to reach a precarious snow bridge.

The bridge was simply a path of packed snow on the side of the mountain, with only enough room to place one foot in front of the other. As we began crossing the snow bridge, the stone cliff-face was on our left, and about a hundred-foot rocky drop was on our right. 

Leaning my body toward the mountain and keeping my left hand on the cliff face, I slowly placed one foot in front of the other, cautiously navigating the 200-foot-long snow bridge while trying not to look down to my right. All three of us made it across safely, but that was definitely the most dangerous stretch I’ve encountered on a hike. It was nerve-wracking, and we knew we’d have to cross it again on the way down.

Throughout the trek, we spotted several small cabins in the distance and wondered what they were, until we came across one near the trail with a sign that read, “Survival Cabin.” These cabins are used to shelter hikers in distress in case of bad weather. Not a single YouTube video we watched mentioned that.

After continuing our journey through snowy stretches and rock formations, we reached a flat, rocky are, and suddenly the Trolltunga lip came into view. The cliff towers 2,300 feet above Ringedalsvatnet Lake and is absolutely breathtaking in person. It’s called Trolltunga, or “Troll’s Tongue” in English, because it resembles a troll’s tongue jutting out from the side of the mountain.

We took turns walking out on the ledge and getting our pictures on the famous rock. I can tell you from experience that the lip looks much wider in photos than it feels when you walk out on it. I definitely thought I was much closer to the edge than I actually was when I looked back at the pictures, which makes me wonder how Kygo and his production team pulled off this performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUNbhYcY9Ik

One of the reasons they strongly suggest hiring a guide in the off-season is because the weather can change in an instant, and as soon as we reached the peak, it did just that. While we were taking pictures, dark clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. The sun disappeared, and as we ate our lunch at the summit, it began to get cold.

We bundled up, put our jackets back on, and began our descent down the mountain. The difficult part about Trolltunga is that it’s not just a straight climb; it’s full of false peaks and valleys. That meant what had been downhill on the way up would now be uphill on the way down. Fun times.

Making our way back the same route in the gray, cold weather was far less enjoyable than our ascent in the sun. We returned to the snow bridge, but this time we had to descend the narrow, slippery path, which made it feel even more treacherous. Moving even more cautiously, we placed one foot in front of the other, with my right hand on the cliff face for balance, staring straight at my feet to avoid looking at the steep drop to my left. Slowly but surely, each of us made it across, and we continued on our way.

By the time we reached the long, snow-covered stretches, the wind picked up, whipping in our faces, and it began to rain. With our jackets fully zipped up to protect our faces and our hoods barely staying on from the wind, it felt completely cold and miserable, and we were only halfway down.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, hail began falling from the sky. It started small but kept growing as it came down harder. Fortunately, it never got big enough to actually hurt, but it was the size of small rocks, and you could definitely feel it. The visibility dropped, ruining our view of the mountains on the way down, and the wind made the temperature feel colder than it had all day.

We sledged through the snow-covered stretches, shivering from the wind and trying to protect our faces from the hail. Eventually, we reached the steep stone staircases, now wet and slippery from the storm, and began making our way down the steps.

We were trying to move as quickly as possible to get off the trail and out of the hail. As I made my way around a guided group on a steep set of stone stairs, I felt my right foot slip off the rock I had stepped on. With my right foot now in the air, I tried to plant my left foot to regain my balance, but it slipped as well, and I landed flat on my back. I guess I was the sucker this time.

With no injuries except a bruised ego, I picked myself up, dusted off, and continued down the steps until we reached the bottom. At this point, the hail had stopped and the wind had slowed, making the remainder of the descent through the rocky, barren area and switchback road much more manageable.

When we finally made it back to the car, we cranked the heat to warm up and escape the elements. The sense of accomplishment after conquering one of the hardest hikes in Norway, and toughing it out through a hailstorm, was palpable. According to our research, the trek was supposed to take eight to ten hours, and we completed it in just under seven. We were very proud of that, especially having done it without a guide. That said, one feeling outweighed everything else: taking my hiking boots off when we got to the car.

That night, we celebrated over dinner and a few drinks before turning in early. We were set to make a four-hour drive to Bergen the next morning, where we’d spend the afternoon before our flight to the Arctic Circle for our next big adventure.

See ya when I see ya

-Doug