Trollstigen

Flying Birdmen of Trollstigen

On October 11, 2009 CBS News 60 Minutes aired a TV segment about extreme sport athletes who put on "squirrel suits" only to jump off ultra high mountain tops with only one parachute. A portion of that segment was filmed in the Isterdalen valley with these very same rock cliffs. See this link for the flight: 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/taking-flight-with-the-birdmen-09-10-2009/

These "Birdmen" fly at speeds up to 150 MPH coming dangerously close to the shear rock on their way to the bottom. Trollstigen pass (meaning Troll's Path) rises to an elevation of 2780 feet (850m). The cantilevered outlook viewpoint shown here is only at 2300 feet. The surrounding mountain tops (out of view) have such names as The King, The Queen, and The Bishop. The King, or Kongen in Norwegian, rises to an elevation of  5295 feet (1614m). The road up to Trollstigen has a 10% incline and has 11 hairpin turns. The road began construction in 1928 and opened in 1936. For many years the road was only wide enough for one car and turnouts were far and few between. Such was the road when I first traveled it with my Norwegian grandparents in 1958. The turns were so tight that even small tour buses needed to make several back and forth maneuvers at each hairpin. In 2005, the road was improved so two lanes were the norm and tour buses could negotiate the turns in one attempt. During the summer season, about 2500 vehicles per day use Trollstigen pass with a total of 162,000 vehicles in 2012. This photo was taken on a rainy day in August of 2013.