Trolltunga via Ferrata (Iron Road)

After what seemed like 4 different bouts of 1hr sleep the alarm went off at 6:10am this morning. The cause for the lack of sleep was a late night briefing for our day‘s trip, and restless sleep due to questions like „How will I cope with a 24km hike?“, „How scary is the Via Ferrata?“, „What if I slip or my arms get tired while climbing?“ -we would soon find out.
We had parked at the RV parking spot for the Trolltunga hike and slept there. We met up at 7:10am with the rest of our party, a nice couple from the UK Jonathan and Bethan to share a taxi ride to the starting point and the tour operators cabin at P2 Skjeggedal. There we got outfitted with a bike, we had most of the Via Ferrata gear with us (don’t ask me, Jeanette packed it „just in case“ I just dug it out under our Ski Erg we had shopped the other day 😅🤙🏽).
The tour started with a 6km Bike ride - a mostly gravel road, with some bigger boulder segments made challenging mostly by the ill fitted and outdated bikes (polymere and spring suspensions are outdated for a reason). The hardtails would warm our butts and the rocks we bounced over would still be felt the day after…
It followed a short hike to the entry of the Via Ferrata that was typical Norwegian, steep, rocky, four-limb requiring in some situations.
The Via Ferrata started with a bang: A slight overhang - enough to bring back the questions from last night. But this would turn out to be the worst part of the 500m vertical climb.
The views were spectacular - our tempo allowed us to enjoy it and Angel had some planned picture stops along the way. We also learned that the most sold meal in Norway is the Frozen Pizza, that one blueberry can fuel you for 8 meters and the most popular beer in the world is chinese. - Of course with all the historical things about the Brits building the dam and hydro electricity (and having to return them 80years later as part of the deal), the names of the glaciers and lake, the snow wool flower, the biggest glacier potthole and the smallest trees in Norway.
Of course the main goal was the famous Troltunga, troll‘s tongue, rock, protruding over a 1200m drop-off over the glaciers.Read more