Troll Wall

Interesting facts

Carl Boenish, a pioneer of modern BASE jumping, was killed jumping from the wall in 1984, one of eight BASE jumpers to die here.

The first BASE jump from the wall was made in 1980 by the Finnish jumper Jorma Öster.

The 1998 rockfalls were so large that five full pitches of the Rimmon Route simply vanished from the face.

The first winter ascent, in March 1974, took 13 days of climbing on the French Route.

The Norwegian first-ascent team of 1965 were Ole Daniel Enersen, Leif Norman Patterson, Odd Eliassen and Jon Teigland.

The British team that topped out a day later, Tony Howard, John Amatt and Bill Tweedale, named their line the Rimmon Route.

The first free ascent, in 1979, was made by Hans Christian Doseth and Ragnhild Amundsen.

In July 2010 Sindre and Ole Johan Sæther free-climbed the Arch Wall, 37 pitches, in a single 36-hour push.

In February 2018 the mountain runner Kilian Jornet became the first person to ski down the Troll Wall.

Why it is worth it

The Troll Wall, Trollveggen in Norwegian, is the sheer north face of the Trolltindene massif in Romsdalen, in the county of Møre og Romsdal, and it is the tallest vertical rock face in Europe: about 1,100 m from the valley floor to its highest point. Near the top the summit ridge overhangs the base by roughly 50 m. The rock is gneiss, broken into enormous corners, overhanging roofs and crack systems and crowned by a row of spires and pinnacles, and it is notoriously loose; a series of large rockfalls in September 1998 changed the face and destroyed several classic routes.

The wall was first climbed in 1965, when a Norwegian team and a British team reached the top by separate routes a day apart; the British line, the Rimmon Route, became the favourite until the 1998 rockfalls. Since then the face has seen a first winter ascent in 1974 by the Polish climber Wojciech Kurtyka, a first free ascent in 1979, and a series of multi-day big-wall routes on its steepest section, several of them later free-climbed by local climbers. Cold, damp weather and the looseness of the rock make new routes rare.

From 1980 the wall became one of the pioneering sites of BASE jumping, and after several deaths Norway banned parachute jumps from Trolltindene in 1986–87. For most visitors, though, the Troll Wall is simply an overwhelming sight from the valley floor: the Rauma River, the Rauma Railway and the E136 road all run beneath it, and the top can be reached on foot from the back, by a trail starting at the top of the Trollstigen road.

Getting there

The wall stands above the valley south of Åndalsnes. Molde is about 41 km away, and the nearest airport is Molde Airport, Årø (MOL), about 38 km. The E136 road and the Rauma Railway pass directly beneath the face.

Troll Wall

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

On these lists

From the encyclopaedia