Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Sukkertoppen, 314m
Trollråsa is dead. Long live Trollråsa, May 24 2012
To the main Sukkertoppen page.
Sukkertoppen, Tyskerstien & Trollråsa
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This summer, it was 6 years since I discovered (or perhaps re-discovered) the steep route down Sukkertoppen's west ridge. I named the route Trollråsa - after my dog, who in turn was named after the "Troll B" platform. I marked the route with ribbons and I left a mailbox and a book (visitor's register) halfway up the mountainside. I deliberately chose not to mark the upper and lower entry points to prevent people from thinking there was a regular path here. It's more than steep enough to give those with little tolerance for heights a really bad day. Over the years, the word spread through the grapevine and the route became more and more popular.
So it was a bit sad when a friend told me that someone had recently painted the route red from top to bottom. The route was now also described on morotur.no - an official site for hikes in the region. I couldn't understand the need to mark the route as it had suffered from tear and wear over 6 years, and I decided to go and see for myself. I also invited Erik - the son of a colleague - as I had previously promised to take him up there.
As my friend had told me that the "Trollråsa book" was in a bad shape after all these years, I decided to replace it with a new one. Shortly after Erik and me headed up Trollråsa, a large group of hikers came from the Atlanterhavsparken side. They were obviously aiming for Trollråsa, and could possibly be the largest Trollråsa group ever...
A large group - coming this way...
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Erik and me moved on. He was moving swiftly like fit teenagers do, and did certainly not lack a head for heights. Good company, he was too.
Regarding the path; there was red paint "all over the place", and I was really upset when I saw large, red T's painted on solid rock. I was really questioning if this was in line with general intensions for trail marking. Moreover, The T is a signature of the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (DNT), and I knew that they were not responsible for this.
Paint does not belong in the nature, and should as such - be used with extreme caution!!!!
When we arrived at the mailbox, I swapped the books and we continued upwards. The paintwork got more and more crazy and I felt really depressed. There were more than 150 T's and other marks from the bottom to the top of the route!
Pick your favorite
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Erik enjoyed the route itself, which pleased me. And we still had Tyskerstien to look forward to! But first, a short stay on top of Sukkertoppen. Not even paint can take away the good feeling I get on top of this mountain!
On Sukkertoppen
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We headed back down to the Trollråsa mailbox to "chill out" for a little while. Erik tested the "Trollråsa chair" and concluded that he liked it ...
The Trollråsa -chair-
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Part of the large group arrived at the mailbox. Not all seemed to be delighted to be here and some seemed sceptical about the route onwards. I talked briefly with some of them, and they told me a little bit about their organized group. In return, I gave them the accurate version of how Trollråsa got its name... ;)
Trollråsa visitors
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Erik and me continued down to Tyskerstien, where we met the rest of the group - busy with looking at something. As they passed me, I mentioned that I had swapped the visitor's register. A couple of them wondered if I was the one who put out the book in the first place, and I confirmed this. Then they were able to connect me to my web-site, which a couple of them knew.
Tyskerstien is a route from WW2 that I re-vitalised in 2006 and wrote about on my web-site. It is a steep route - much steeper than Trollråsa - and I was always a bit nervous when I went up this way. But a couple of years ago, someone put up ropes here. To me, the route lost some of its "magic" when I heard about it, but now I was curious to see how it looked like.
I think Erik was a bit surprised when I told him that we were going down this vertical crack in the mountain, but he didn't seem to hesitate one bit and climbed like climbers do. The annoying part was that now that the ropes were there, it was really difficult NOT to use them...
In Tyskerstien
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The small bushes that we used to trust with our lives with, were all gone and I actually had to use the rope to get down the final steep section. I know that Erik enjoyed the small "tunnel" we went through and shortly after, we were back down on the road.
Although the trip was nice (as always), it was sad to see all the paint, bolts and ropes on the mountain. To me, both routes had lost their "magic". I am very grateful for the many memorable moments I've had up here - alone and with friends. Trollråsa as I know it is now dead. Long live Trollråsa...
Tyskerstien
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