Trolltunga!

Day 57 - July 20^th

Somehow we still had a little energy left for another physically punishing day despite a mammoth day hiking and rafting the day before.  We awoke at the crack of dawn in the town of Odda to face the challenge of the Trolltunga.  

Trolltunga is essentially a piece of rock that looks like a ‘Trolls Tongue’ and hangs out over lake Ringedalsvatnet in the Hardangerfjord.  The tourist office was closed when I went to get some additional information on the hike however a big sign in the window said you needed good footwear and to prepare yourself for a full 22km and 10-hour hike! 

We made our way up the narrow winding road to the starting point just north of the town Skjeggedal counting our blessings that we didn’t encounter another vehicle en route as there wasn’t a lot of room for two vehicles and the sheer drop off the side of the road was not for the faint hearted.  

We parked up and set off at 08:15am with the first hour being a vertical slog straight up the mountain.  If it hadn’t been for our experience with the Extremist trail the day before I feel a few more complaints would have been voiced while climbing up the unstable and steep rocky terrain. 

The Trolltunga track, marked by a Red T. We were lucky to follow the right path as all tracks were intelligently marked with a Red T!

Getting to the top of the second steep bit and the snow line.

Hiking through the snow out to the Hardanger Fjord.
Temperature was around 10 degrees through the snow.

The next leg of the trail leads us past mountain huts and then onto another sharp rocky climb.  We were soon greeted with snow and rewarding views of Lake Ringedalsvatnet as we begun to trek along the mountaintop. We took the opportunity to refuel stopping at a gorgeous location for some coffee, fruit and chocolate. 

Morning tea over the Hardanger Fjord.

Mmmm...coffee, snickers and an apple.

For the next few hours we endured more snow, mud, rocks, bog holes and river crossings before reaching the much-anticipated Trolltunga. 

To be honest, we accidentally took a wrong turn just before the real Trolltunga (son of Trolltunga) and found a similar rock that we couldn’t resist a few snaps on.

The Trolltunga rock is not for those weary of heights, as the sight of it actually gives you vertigo and makes you want to vomit.  In fact, it was far worse to watch others stand, sit, cartwheel or jump on it rather than actually be on it your self.  

Luke and I ‘had our go’ on the rock as there was a small queue of fellow hikers waiting their turn.  We managed a few jump shots and a sneaky peek over the edge, which wasn’t as bad as we thought.  Sitting on the edge was out of the question though as just a small slip would send you plummeting to your death or at least the rest of your life in the handicap parking spots.

The Just Married Shot or Just About to Get Divorced?

Watching other people do this was far worse.

Someone send this Jetstar will you?

Luke and his bloody air guitar!

The girl is about to do a cartwheel and the bloke is obviously standing on his head at the tip of the tongue.
This made a little bit of vomit come up.

After smashing a few sandwich’s for lunch and managing to keep them down while watching people do dangerous poses on the Trolltunga, we started on our return to Maxi.  

The return route seemed much easier as it wasn’t as steep and the feeling we had when passing hoards of people on their way out to the tongue and knowing exactly how far they had to travel gave us an additional burst of energy! 

Heading back along the trail full of energy as we passed people on their way out.

Again a little full of energy to know that we were doing record time back to the van.

In the last hour of the journey we happened to bump into a British couple that we had met the night before in the Odda car park.  They had noticed that we had a British van and came over and knocked on the door.  We had a nice chat, swapping travel stories and told them we were doing Trolltunga the next day.  They hadn’t planned to do it but had thought it would have been good. 

We didn’t get their names so called them ‘John and Bridget Taunton’ as they were from Taunton in the UK and they looked like a ‘John’ and a ‘Bridget.’  

It was about 16:30pm and it had taken us just over 8 hours thus far, while they were just starting!  We wished them luck and counted our blessings that we had made an early start and were now on our final descent. 

I would have liked to take the Funicular down, but sadly it was out of operation so instead we decided to take the Funicular steps down the last part. It didn’t last long as a small miss step would have seen you catching your foot in between the slats and sent straight over the edge. 

After about 100m walking down this, we decided it was probably a little too dangerous. What do you think?

On our return to the car park we left our email address and a few beers on the Taunton’s camper windscreen.  We have since received an email back from them, and they got back to the van at 03:30am! Oh, and their names were actually Stan and Bernie. Not far off!

We left with weary bodies and shaking legs and started to make our way in the direction of Bergen along route 550, catching a ferry over to route 7 and found a lovely wild camp spot on a fjord in the small town of Tryg.