Trollstigen and Dalsnibba via Fylkesvei 63

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Trollstigen, 6300 Åndalsnes, Norway

I was on the road again, and literally, I was on a series of roads that were really cool to navigate, because they are roads that are known all around the world, due to their location and their designs. The scenic route that did was “Fylkesvei 63“ or “Route 63” (real name “Country Route 63”), like the US Route 66, it’s a must do drive, but in Norway. These roads on the mountains are amazing feats of engineering, and I love investigating/inspecting engineering marvels, including roads, and I love road trips, so it was a no-brainer for me to get a road trip on! Fylkesvei 63 is runs between Langvatnet (Skjåk) and Åndalsnes (Rauma) and my main goal to hit was a location with roads called Trollstigen, was located. If you want to extend your road trip, if you are inspired by this writing, is you can also navigate Route 15 on the way to Fylkesvei 63, to extend that scenic drive because there is great scenery there too, which I also did because I went to Lom, Norway (east), and also I went southwest to an incredible location in Øvstefossen, on Route 15, to see that incredible landscape, with a couple of waterfalls in that immediate area in that hyperlink I just posted in this sentence. Do not sleep on Router 15, it’s got a lot of gems. Based on the scenery that I saw, while on the road, I figured this would need to be a multi-day endeavor to see all of what I wanted to see, it was just so much to take in. The backdrops of the locations is mountains and valleys, and in Norway, I heard that they are famous for making holes in the mountains to make tunnels through them, but I didn’t initially expect them to make these winding roads that I came to see, which mean that in order to navigate the landscape, one would need to go OVER the mountains. Noways is famous for the tunnels, but if you go through the tunnels, you don’t get to see the beautiful scenery. That’s what makes these above mountain roads special, they’re not using tunnels to get to the other side of the mountains! That’s when you start to see the importance of the designs of the roads because if anyone is supposed to traverse the land, or just live in the areas where the roads are, there is no other way to get past the MOUNTAINS these roads are created around. It took decades and centuries to create those pathways. You have to think about when these roads, like Trollstigen, were created. Some of them were created in the 1800s! The winding roads into the town on Geiranger was opened in 1889, and this is the one getting from town over the mountain. Trollstigvegen wasn’t officially open until 1935 but there were make-shift roads created there prior, but since the valley was so important to the local markets, there needed to be a way over or through that mountain. These roads are winding roads with switchback/hairpin turns that one has to make many times, to get over the huge mountains they help get up and over by horses, oxen or any kind of animals pulling carts, and humans too, thus the road angles couldn’t be too steep, because those vehicles at the time weren’t like the powerful ones today. The zig zags are to try to level the lands as much as possible as one climbs the inclines. At the top of these roads, there are really good observation areas to look out over the land, when you get to the top of many of the roads that have this kind of design, which is why many tourists come from all over the world to see these roads, and especially the ones that we have come to know as Trollstigen, which is really the road in Åndalsnes, Norway that get up and over the mountain there. That part about getting up and over the mountain is what this part of the road trip was about. Norwegians love mythology and the Trollstigen is made by the trolls, in folklore. Trolls come from Norse mythology and they’re supposed to be frightening, giant demons who can suck your blood. Trolls are not what thing like Disney is trying to take and make their own. Disney is notorious for taking ideas from Norway and making their own stories out of them, the same with Denmark where they rip off everything that is Hans Christian Andersen’s work. The troll is not even supposed to be a short character either, the idea of that came from toys that used to be sold in the USA, in the 1950s. So when they call Trollstigen the “Troll’s Ladder” they are not talking about miniature characters climbing up a mountain and over the other side, they’re talking about a GIANT using Trollstigen to climb over a mountain. Trolls are associated also with the biggest mountains in the region, the Jotunheimen mountains, and Jotun is GIANT in old Norwegian so Jotunheimen is means “home of the giants.” Trolls are not supposed to be cute and lovely, they’re huge and scary in Norse stories. I initially couldn’t understand the link between the origin stories of trolls and Trollstigen but it started to make sense when I realized that their trolls weren’t the Disney tales. So the tourist attraction of Trollstigen is you getting in your car and climbing up over the mountain top walking along the path that the trolls took to get over the mountain. Sounds silly but it was really fun when I landed in that in Åndalsnes town and couldn’t see anything upward on the mountain because it was buried in thick clouds and fog and only revealed maybe 1/100th of the height at the base of the mountain.

After I touched ground in Scandinavia, I saw these Trollstigen roads advertised on several sites, so if you ever make it out to Norway, do not go to Oslo and think that’s the best that the country has to offer. There are a great many places to go to see some breathtaking views and very “interesting” sites that are scattered about all over the country, and these roads should be added to the itinerary due to the viewpoints you get to access by these roads. If you’re chasing the trolls specifically, there are many other places you can go that have this as a theme, and trust me, they were everywhere I went. As I talked to more people about it, guys who are big car people all knew about these roads, but casual travelers have no idea about these roads, despite the many adverts. I asked people I knew, who went to Norway, and they didn’t know about the roads, but they were mostly ladies, so maybe that wasn’t their thing, based on the way the roads are advertised, but the VIEWPOINTS, and the scenery along the routes, that’s what you’re going for. I asked about the viewpoint and people told me they didn’t really bother to go that far northwest in Norway. Pretty much, people only go as far northwest as Bergen. People I asked about Norway told me about Flam, Bergen and Oslo, that’s it. When I mentioned one the most advertised areas to go to, which contains the roads and viewpoints I’m talking about, Trollstigen, people don’t even know about this gem- that is not a hidden gem because I recently saw it on a very popular Viator commercial advertising Trollstigen, the Troll town.  The selling point about the Viator commercial is all the trolls that you can see in Trollstigen, but what the commercial does NOT properly highlight, in this commercial about Trollstigen and the road trip this failed couple partake in, is THE ACTUAL ROADS on the road the take, called “Trollstigvegen”. Trollstigen is not a tour to see troll statues, Trollstigen is a man-man marvel, the roads you have to take to get to the resting area of that commercial, the viewpoint along Fylkesvei 63. In the commercial, you can see it for 1 second each, 2 times, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to focus on in that commercial, other than the couple’s drama. After I saw the commercial, Fylkesvei 63 was high on my to-do list for when I finally got out to Norway, and that commercial helped influence me to want to go out that far. I completely forgot to follow up and look up Trollstigen, for photo ops, at the time, and figure I’d surprise myself when I got there, which is dumb if you think you may need to do some photo ops, you SHOULD scout in advance. I figured, it’s just some roads so there would nothing to see, just cruising along that roads of a modern marvel that was designed to get Norwegians over the mountain. So, thinking like this, I didn’t do my proper homework because I wrote it off.  I just know that I had seen the commercial, where there was not a lot of color to the scenes, it was mostly cloudy and maybe dull, if you ask some untrained eyes. To me, I saw a lot of greenery and the mountains being surrounded by mystery (clouds). That area setting that was seen in the commercial makes for great folklore involving trolls that hide. The trolls supposedly lived in the caves of the mountains, and they would were very cruel to humans, they would throw boulders from the mountains at humans, from the cover of clouds. I had seen enough to convince me to go, but there were elements in the video that I ignored and didn’t notice initially, although it forecasted what I’d run into there. The added stories of the trolls made me imagine creepy or mysterious scenery and that whole area lived up to the hype of a place that I could certainly see trolls live in. Trolls don’t live under rocks, they over on the rocks and in caves in the mountains. This is all in Norse mythology and the very first mention of them was back in the 13th century in Prose Edda. The mean trolls would get evil on your if you came to their side of life, the wilderness where the beauty of nature is, in those mountains. I’ll admit though, the ones they have there at Trollstigen, they looked soft like those Disney ones. I’d smack the sh!t of those trolls in the mythological days.

That week I was in Norway, I saw various fjords, and the weather was perfect out there, sunny, getting warmer, no rain clouds, which made the experience a good but questionable one. I was told that if you’re in the fjords, then you can expect rainy conditions, but everywhere else, nice, and sunny, clear skies everywhere in Norway. That all panned out, but it took away from the landscape, somewhat, because it make most of them look exactly the same. So, with weather holding the whole previous week, on the way into Geiranger, it was the best opportunity to accomplish a goal of mine, in Norway, to hit some of those strange roads they built, on a couple of scenic route road trips. These Norwegian roads are ones that people claim one has to traverse if going to west Norway, and to go to two viewpoints that are famous in the west of Norway. In Geiranger, there is the scenic road the Nibbevegen road that takes you to a point where you can go to a viewpoint on top of the highest mountain in the fjord town of Geiranger, Dalsnibba. From this viewpoint, you can see a series of hairpin turns that lead to, and from, Geiranger. The Nibbevegen road to the Dalsnibba mountain is a pretty one, and it’s on the path of Fylkesvei 63, so you cannot miss it as you come up from the south or east into Geiranger, on the way to Trollstigen. It’s a very pretty road (normally) and that’s why it’s on the list of top roads to traverse, but unfortunately, that whole area was still surrounded by snow, but it was already Summer, which see the beauty of the roads from the viewpoint on top of Dalsnibba. The skies were completely clear that, as I said, the weather was warm, but the snow just wouldn’t melt surrounding the immediate are of Dalsnibba mountain, because if you look out north, from the viewpoint, you’ll see that you’re on top of Dalsnibba and it’s the highest mountain, so you’re standing in the middle of a snowcapped mountain- thus the snow is slow to melt because it’s colder up there. Despite this, the ride was amazing because I didn’t see ANY snow in Norway, until I got to this point, in Geiranger. In the south and east of the country, I didn’t see any snow at all, except in patches in 1 fjord, but the west can see a lot of it on certain roads, as evidenced on the sides of the road. That should have let me know that this portion of Norway was NOT like any of the previous places, in terms of weather, but I didn’t read or see anything about this, prior. It was supposed to be a minimum of 16 degrees Celsius (60 Fahrenheit) and was to be a high of 21 Celsius (70 Fahrenheit), warm. As we went towards Dalsnibba, I couldn’t see the winding roads clearly, to its south or east, it was all snowed over to the south and the remaining snow to the north was masking the winding road into town, a little- you’d have to look closely at the pics to see the road structure winding on the mountain! Eventually, we broke through the clouds and fog and then we could see the Fylkesvei 63 clearly, and then finally the road up to the top of Dalsnibba to get that great viewpoint shot. If you look a that inset picture, that is to top of Dalsnibba, and my destination was that itty bitty town you can see way off to the north, right before that body of water (Geirangerfjord) you in the valley of that picture, Geiranger. That is the highlight town of this whole area and I had 3 days to chill there and do daily excursions out of that town to the neighboring areas being blogged about in this piece, and some others I’ll follow this up with. You have to get up to Dalsnibba to see this view, don’t miss it! I heard about people going into down and they did not know that Dalsnibba’s overview was there. This is the best overlook of any fjord in Norway, by the way, the birds eye view of the Geirangerfjord is one of the most used vantage point I’ve ever seen when it comes to highlighting Norway. A show like the one I took up top, I saw countless photos of it, only after I got to the spot and thought ‘am I experiencing dejavu or something?” I saw this picture, and many scenes like this picture, every time I looked up “Norway Fjords” which was something else I chasing while in Norway, which you can get my opinion in that hyperlink. This is one of those stops that makes this road trip 100% worth it, and it’s not even the highlight of the things I saw along the route of Fylkesvei 63 toward Trollstigen.

The weather conditions were clear skies, and the view was amazing because we were up 1500 meters above sea level, and as you looked around, you’re surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Looking down from the mountain, the snow starts to disappear, but only to the north, the south the view was just a complete whiteout and you can barely make out anything due to the snow. So, I had been fortunate to be able to at least get the little bit of view I was able to see, after getting to a special angle everyone was lined up in to try to get their view too. Although that viewpoint was almost spoiled by the snow, and I didn’t think I could ever say that, but it was somewhat true. I had seen other pictures from up there, and they looked amazing, even the most amateur ones, but that was because it’s normally very green and no snow in any of the pictures I saw. That day, part of the view north was also obstructed because the mountains were all still snowcapped at this point, and Dalsnibba is the highest mountain in that immediate area, so the workers of the viewpoint cleared it out for parking, but everything else is almost untouched, except for walkways. To get pics to somewhat see the roads best, everyone had to maneuver to a specific area to see the winding roads from Dalsnibba, thus, everyone was piled up in that 1 area of the viewpoint because that was the only place to see almost the entire winding road down into town, due to the snow messing up the scenery. I figured, at least town in the valley was not overrun with snow too, so we’d only need to get off of the top of the mountain, to an area without the snow, and take pics from there. When it was my turn to get in the line to get my pic of the windy road, I could see more winding roads way off in the distance, so I snapped a quick pic, got out of the way so others could get their shots, and then I started doing shots- of Scandinavia liquor! Then when I looked down, before leaving, I could see a pile of cars and it looked like an accident, but it wasn’t, it’s just that people don’t know how to properly drive those winding roads properly, and they hold up everyone. I could see that people must have underestimated those winding roads and the speeds one must go on the decline, hitting the hairpin turns. The roads are not that wide, so cars must move out of the way of the other, which apparently, people don’t know how to do well out if not from there, and this is what was holding everything up in several locations, as the tourists started to pile in. By the time I was at the viewpoint, now MANY tourists arrived in town, as the cruise ships started to arrive, and thousands of people unloaded on the town of Geiranger. I was watching the Fylkesvei 63 down into down and I could see that the people who underestimated the effort it takes to drive those winding roads when you have pressure of cars and campers and busses coming at you in both directions and there is no space to move around them. You’d have to strategically spot a little bit of space created in the roads, where you can get enough space to barely let another vehicle pass. I was watching car after car of terrible drivers almost scrape their mirrors on other vehicles passing in the opposite direction as them. The other major gotcha is that you cannot back up on these roads, there is no space, people are lined up back to back to back when they’re queuing up to navigate it. You’re also not supposed to blow your horn out in those places, so if you’re someone who has a nasty attitude and are a road rager, you’re going to be screwed up in this place. It takes a lot of patience to get up and down this place in those roads. Clearly, that huge cruise ship coming into down cause the town to become overpopulated with people and it was the weekend and it the busses coming from other places all converged on this small town. I was just hoping that the town wouldn’t be so packed that instead of being able to feely enjoy the roads, cruising at a continuous pace and enjoying the inertia of curves, I’d be stuck waiting in lines of cars. Keep in mind, there is another area, just beyond the town, that also is a destination to get to, and to go to a place like this and not be able to fully enjoy the ride would really suck. So we just waited for the congestion to relax a bit before we head out.

At that point, you can get local drivers to take you to and from places that a few hours away, but are much sought after destinations, like Trollstigen! One of those stops is the tops of Dalsnibba so we got out of there as soon as the crowds were coming up the winding roads, but that cause the congestions on the way into town.  There were also many tourists on the roads that day, aiming to experience those famous winding roads – mostly Norwegians likely from the east, per my driver- but they clogged up traffic in both directions. This was good because that me opportunity to take pictures of the scenery out the window, but it was bad because it messes up the experience of navigating those roads continuously, without having to wait in traffic. I quickly realized that if you have bad drivers on the road, that’s going to mess up these trips to the winding roads! You want the roller coaster feeling of doing down those hills, but you need to continuously be moving to enjoy it. We tried to wait as much as we could for the congestion to clear out, and when it lightened up, we bounced to the northside of Dalsnibba, to go into the center of town in Geiranger. On the north side of the Dalsnibba, those winding roads are called Geirangervegen. When I see “vegen” attached to a Norwegian word, know it means “road” but a noteworthy road if you see it advertised anywhere, and I did see this one in adverts. It’s part of the scenic drive I mapped out, Fylkesvei 63, but also I saw that Route 15 was also a huge scenic route, and it leads you to Fylkesvei 63, so there were many stops to see and scenery to see if you include route 15 in your trip you plan. The destinations we had to hit were assessable from route 15 so that was perfect! That being said, you have to keep your eyes open for photo stop places, and a better view over Geiranger is at such a stop just north of Dalsnibba’s viewpoint, at one of those spots that is just off road below the viewpoint. That area was not surrounded by snow, so it was better to go there and get better pictures of the town below, because up at the overview, there is a cliff the blocks the view and that is where all of that snow was pilled up, blocking some of the best angles to get photos from. This is why we were piled up in 1 area up on top of the overview, we weren’t getting good pics from everywhere facing north. The only view you have is facing towards the town, so you mind as well just go down to the lower area I’m talking about, and take the pictures from there. I’m sure someone else has realized this problem I’m talking about with the view from the Dalsnibba skywalk observation area, and that’s why if you look on Google Maps, you will see someone mapped exactly the area I’m talking about, below the viewpoint, for a better view. There is a pull-off section of the road and there is a separate parking to get the better view – so it’s not just me being a travel snob and photography complaining, they MADE this extra area likely because I observed what billions have also noticed. You can check here. My concern was if I’d face the same conditions in Trollstigen because it’s also a high mountain area, and I prayed there wouldn’t be snow blocking the view. Keep in mind, snow is terrible for a scene without high contrasting colors. If you have a gloomy day with snow, it sucks, photographically. If it snows really big, then there are piles of snow blocking key views, that’s when snow is annoying. A little further down from this spot is a second parking/viewpoint and from there you will see a waterfall and the winding roads! When we saw the clouds, I started to hear people starting to get negative about the trip prospects. I did check weather, it didn’t way anything about high percentage of rain, it was low chances so I wasn’t too worried. They were spoiled because we had nothing but sunshine the whole time week before, every day, nice and sunny and warm for the most part. Now, it was a little colder and the clouds were coming in, but mainly, it’s because we were getting higher in elevation and the hot air slipping into the pockets under the clouds. I can roll with any weather, but I’ve done plenty of trips where people don’t want to go outside when a little rain comes, and they’ll waste whole days of vacation doing NOTHING in a hotel room. Nah, this is the right wether for me, I can turn anything weather situation into something. Now, the challenge was on!

Dalsnibba was not exactly the bust that I originally thought though, minus the snow and all masking some of the best views and traffic on the winding roads, that day, the little lower area “view hack” helped save that experience. If you look at the above photos, you can see the winding roads I came to see, but you have to SQUINT because the snow was piled upon on the sides of the road and the snow was over 3 meters (9 feet) high and more, so that snow was blocking the road from the skywalk and the parking lot below. Actually, they will close those roads in Winter because the snow is too high, so these roads are not even open all year around, it’s way too dangerous and you’ll likely go sliding to your death if you took a vehicle there when it has black ice, or snow that has not been plowed, but a LOT of snow is dropped on that area, as it’s the top of the mountain. I like snow, I like mountains and I loved the mix of snow, mountains and fjord so this is a must stop area, if you want to do this road trip! There were many other busses going up and down those winding roads, but when they cleared, and learned how to properly navigate the roads, it started to get much better on the road. If you want to maximize your trip here, don’t go unless it’s late summer to fall, because you’ll get all the great views you see online, in all directions and the snow will be gone. Still go earlier in the day, to beat the crowds, if you wait too late, you’re wasting your time. If you look in the Geirangerfjord picture I included, I added it so you can see that a huge cruise ship is in the fjord. That means complete mess in town with all the people in town, places to eat, transportation! If you want a cab, likely you’ll have a long wait because many are taking cabs up to the top of the mountain and to neighboring areas. It’s congested all over then. If there is no cruise ship, then you should go do the course I mapped on Fylkesvei 63 because there will be less traffic on the special roads, which to travel freely on the roads, is the point- not to be stuck in traffic on those roads! I was now praying that Trollstigen would not be overrun by clouds and people, at that point, and I knew Trollstigen was also a high mountain, and the viewpoint is at the highest point on the mountain, so that meant that there is going to be snow. I did like the snowcapped mountains fading to greenery, it is a great look, but depending on the scene, if you have no sky at all (heavy overcast), that can be not too entertaining. The skies were completely clear on the day I was at the Dalsnibba skywalk, just like the previous week, so I had high hopes for further travel on Fylkesvei 63 to Trollstigen. On the day I was to leave the town of Geiranger, the next stop was to go to see Trollstigen as we continued on Fylkesvei 63, northward. I forgot to scout Trollstigen out a little better, for photo ops, after watching that Viator commercial so I started to check it out. I was hyped up, to see Trollstigen, the best winding roads in the mountains on earth, as the advert said, on a bright and sunny day, just like I saw when I finally looked it up. The videos and pictures looked amazing on nice and sunny days, very vivid colors of the mountain and road. I checked the local weather in my current position and in the area where Trollstigen was, and it was warm weather still, clear skies. PERFECT! Nothing was going to ruin my voyage to see Trollstigen. I did a few activities in Geiranger area, and when it was time to move on. Bam! We roll out, first thing, heading for the town of Åndalsnes, Norway, where the Trollstigen road is located. On the way, there was another series of hairpin turns that you have to navigate, to get up and over the mountain in the area of Møllsbygda, on the winding road called Ørnevegen. When I looked further into my Fylkesvei 63 quest, I saw a series of winding roads on a mountainside that were not previously observed on my mapping out of Fylkesvei 63, but I did see it from the mountain top overlooking the fjords, and I realized I did see it while in the fjord the day before, while I was on the boat ride. When I realized that Ørnevegen was part of Fylkesvei 63, that was incredible, and I needed to get to that winding road immediately! I had seen some speed demons racing up the mountain, hitting those curves, when I as watching from the boat. To get to Trollstigen, I found out you must cross the winding roads of Ørnevegen, uphill, so I was stoked! Fylkesvei 63 has so many gems along it, you might not map them all out so you juts have to keep your eyes open for great things, apparently!

As I got higher up on Ørnevegen, my brain was just waking up (drinking all night before) and I was wondering where the hell all that overcast was coming from. We had nothing but clear days and then out of nowhere, thick overcast completely overtook the sky. I got out to take some pics while on Ørnevegen and was wondering “why are we eye-level with clouds?” That mountain was nowhere near as high as Dalsnibba from the other day, and my brain wasn’t processing that I was in the fjords, and at the mouth of the fjord to top it off, so those are the clouds that one normally sees surrounding them and help make the best scenes. I looked around and I couldn’t see the top of the mountains in the range when we got to the top of Ørnevegen, they filled the whole valley up. I was so glad we broke up the road trip because Dalsnibba was surely a waste of time with a sky looking like that. You could hear a pin drop in town, there was nothing going on on a day like this. I should have expected those conditions since it’s the fjords and I did read that the fjords could get like that, although it was not raining at least, it did rain the night before, briefly. I figured, we were leaving the fjords so as long as that was the case, Trollstigen was nowhere near the fjord so no big deal, it’s on another plot of land separated by water, and the conditions wouldn’t carry since it’s not a fjord there. I like fjords with the clouds like that, but we were leaving, and I wished to stay a little longer, to get out on the water to get pics- there were no boats running anyway, people don’t want to go out in that overcast- but it was more than just overcast, that was thick fog too! It made for some great color contrast, it cut off the cliffs of all of the mountains in the fjord, and you couldn’t even see Dalsnibba at that point. That was pretty quick that it came in though, because there was sun poking through when I first awoke that morning, I’m sure of it. Alas, we were heading to Trollstigen, and surely better conditions had to be there. To get to Trollstigen, one has to get north to the ferry, and included in the trip we had a temporary local Geiranger driver to take us to the further to the ferry. When we got up into the clouds on that Ørnevegen windy road, we now suddenly saw cars, campers, motorcycles, PEOPLE and busses going in both directions up Ørnevegen, which led to a lot of congestion of vehicles. People I hyped up about the winding roads were now pissed, because that was the second traffic jam on these winding roads that they saw for the first times in their lives, and they HATED them now. 🤣🤦🏾 We were thinking that we would be able to avoid this traffic jam considering that the previous winding roads we went down, a few days earlier, after leaving Dalsnibba mountain, was a clear ride down because we waited for the congesting to clear out then quickly got out of that tourist spot before the next group came in. Considering that the huge cruise ship was finally gone, and you can see it missing in these photos here, from the Geirangerfjord, the town was so empty that we thought there would be nobody on the roads. WRONG!!! Out of nowhere, here came ALL of the tourbuses, racing cars, motorcycles, some guy doing cross country walking…. 🤦🏾 It was bumper to bumper for a while but there was a viewpoint so we pulled up, waited for people to get the hell out of the way and off the roads. We resumed the road trip when they cleared so we could pass the rest of the mountain without really anyone in the way. With all the vehicles out of the way, ok, now you’d think you could get the photos and video going right? Wrong., we went slow trying to get some pics looking out into Geirangerfjord, to. take in just how high up that mountains of the fjord was, and then we could not see any gaps in the fog to take any pictures. We were too high up, we were in the cloud and fog mix, and while others were pissed because the photo opps views were bad for them, to me, that was really cool to be that high up in the clouds like that.

We were waiting in lines of 10 vehicles in either direction, initially, on most of the hairpin turns, which are the highlight of these roads! You have to be very careful in these turns and I witnessed with my own eyes that most people don’t know how to drive those hairpin turns, no matter how simple they look. One by one, we watched near accident after near accident and we started taking bets of which drivers would scrape another driver’s vehicle- racial stereotypes carry the world over, it seemed, based on the ethnic group THEY all said were the worst drivers- only to end up being consistent on this test, we saw. I still enjoyed that because I didn’t plan for the winding roads of Ørnevegen because I didn’t know I’d have to get on them! Then I heard the loud cars, like I heard the day before, out of nowhere- The speed demons were back! The speed demons were doing filming of their actions, or something and racing each other up the turns. They started to speed up and zoom by the other vehicles, while everyone else was being cautious about the sharp turns. That was cool to see them coming up the hill and wrapping those corners so cleanly and there clearly weren’t worries about scraping another car, they had such confidence in their driving skills. That was what I was looking for, the speed demons who are expert drivers on winding roads, like the car commercials. For sure I was waiting for an accident though, I won’t lie. These roads had a lot more turns than the previous winding road from Dalsnibba. The bus driver told me that many expensive car makers come to that specific winding road to race up and down them, and also the ones we passed to Dalsnibba too. The ones that went by us were mostly Aston Martins, a few Audi’s were up there racing, and they were cornering like mad men, cutting off people. The driver told me that the car makers test their steering and maneuvering in Geiranger specifically go flying from Dalsnibba to Ørnevegen. Now, the people saw how hard it was to properly navigate those curves when there are others on the roads going in both directions – as we watched more lame drivers cause traffic jams, the bus driver was calling out all of the errors that would lead to us all waiting in traffic, and one by one, every bad driver made bad turns that there was no room to back up on those hairpin turns, with the lines being almost bumper to bumper, there isn’t rooms for full two way traffic! You can’t hit the hairpins two cars at a time going opposite directions, there is no room, and if you’re on the outside, you have to do a WIDE turn to go from outside (letting people in your way pass on the right) then you pass on the inside “lane” if you will, while the cars in opposite direction wait on your outside left for you to complete the turn. Idiots come and take up your space on the right and then you can’t turn! The speed demons were doing this to circumvent the holdups. The close-calls were very entertaining to everyone too, judging by the oohs, ahhs and cringing. It is amazing to see how many people really think they know how to drive until you get in a situation like this, where you cannot back up! It’s all straight forward, there is no room to back up, you better get it right or you mess everyone up in the lines. Plus, you hit one of those rich cars and you’ll be paying the owner for the rest of your life. Now those fast, expensive cars, they didn’t care. They were zooming by and cutting off everyone when they got the straight way, and a couple of there were zooming around the hairpins. Those were certainly expert drivers that the car manufacturers had out there testing those cars. No way that many regular people know how to drive that fast and that accurate. The night before, I had a conversation with the people who had those Audis, because they were at the hotel with me when I got back from hiking. Dude offered to take me for a ride, but I don’t these people like that, fk out of here. It would have been a good experience, and I’d be ok if I died going fast up and down those winding roads like a race car game, but I’m not going to go with some random stranger trying to get LGBTQ on me and then chop me up in the woods or something. That fog out in that area, man the vibe it gives you is some ‘hills have eyes’ kind of vibe in some areas, like a Stephen King novel or something. Had I know prior that these guys were all part of the car company promotions, I would have gone. Those cars really handled nicely, like they were sliding on ice weaving in and out of traffic. People racing through s-curves is a thing though, and it’s wildly entertaining to watch good drivers take chances with other people’s lives, along with their own, of course. When you’re not on the winding s-curves, then you’re the long roads where you have to keep looking out on both sides of the vehicle for things that pop up all over the place. There is much to see in just about every direction. You can get out anywhere and have something pleasurable to see because there is something worth looking at all long the ride of Fylkesvei 63. That a look at these photos before, these are each along the stop and when it came to the bodies of water that you see in those pics, you could HEAR the water way before you even made it to destination, in a few of these places. While I don’t know Norwegian, I know to listen out for roaring water, and the little big of Norwegian I understood from maps, was that if I see ‘brua’ attached to some word, that meant there was going to be a flowing body of water to be viewed there, for sure! I knew that if I saw a sign with a word attached to ‘fossen’ that there was going to be some waterfall somewhere. I didn’t bother to look this up since, I just know it worked out 9 times out of 10 so it must be right. 🤣 You will stay engaged this whole ride doing just that, keeping your eyes out for signs with those words and keeping your ears open for the sound of water. You have to understand, this is not the big city, so sounds carry. Those roads are not packed with people honking horns, so loud crashing bodies of water are easy to hear and therefore spot, and there is going to be some viewing area likely associated with that. Check the gallery below for examples of what to expect on the route to Trollstigen on Fylkesvei 63.

As we finally got over that series of hairpin turns, on the way to Trollstigen, we went to a point where you can’t go any further unless you take a ferry across, to get to the area where Trollstigen is. That northern area is all broken up by many different fjords, so you must take a ferry to progress past these fjords to continue on Fylkesvei 63 road trip – but I just missed the ferry. I waited for the next ferry and decided to eat, in the area, until the next one came. When I came out of the restaurant, I looked around and the cloud were much lower now, and closing in! The weather was not like the rest of the week, it was now looking like it was going to rain, and then it dawned on me that I was at another fjord, so maybe that could explain the cloud cover. I only need to cross the fjord, I figured, and then a few hours later I’d be on the Trollstigen, and away from this weather. The problem was that when you make it out to the northwest, weather becomes incredibly unpredictable, so the weather report was not accurate. You can get a clear, bright, and sunny day, or you can get a really cloudy day, or you can get a lot of clouds that are just lingering around because you have a lot of fjords out in that western half of Norway. I figured it’s the weather surrounding the fjords, it had to be. I’d seen many pictures before of the famous fjords, but I thought that maybe the photographers waited for days where it was really cloudy out, or should I say “FOGGY’ out. That’s because a fjord is an inlet that is rather narrow portion where sea comes to an inlet and there are high mountains and cliffs. As with places Norway, and Alaska, these fjords were carved up by the glaciers that used to be on top of the mountains, and in many places, some of the glaciers still exist. The conditions in fjords tend to have a lot of precipitation, and when it’s cool in those fjords, it’s very easy for the air to cool and form the mist (more than 1,000 meters visibility) or fog (less than 1,000 meters visibility), that’s why you have so much in cold places like Alaska and west Norway. I now saw a lot of fog overcoming the fjord area where the ferry was, and after getting off the ferry, on the other side of the Fylkesvei 63, leading to Trollstigen, it was very scenic for 50 Kms (31 mi). The scenery kept changing every couple of minutes, but it has some beautiful scenery with the mountains peppered with snow in the background, powerful rivers along the way, waterfalls (big and small) along the way; we had to hop out a lot to get pictures in with this scenery, it would have been a crime not to. This scenery that continues Fylkesvei 63 all the way up to Trollstigen is consistently pleasing, and as someone who has done many road trips, this I can say was the best one I’ve had because you could go to a stop along the way, to get a better view of a mountain, for example, and end up spending 30 minutes taking pictures or trying to explore. When you navigate Fylkesvei 63, if you’re someone who likes to walk and wanders a lot, you’re in trouble! Every single place I stopped at, I started going walking too far, taking up too much time, because many things you are drawn to will have a hiking trail or a path to get closer to what you’re drawn to. You’re going to spend at least 30 minutes at any of these places you decide you’re going to stop at, and it will make you want to walk a lot because almost every spot that I saw, that I was really drawn to, the each had a walking path near. I had to pause and ask myself, over and over, ‘ok, if I got down to that waterfall’s bases, will I end up spending 2 hours there? I don’t have 2 hours to spare, what can I quickly get off?’ It really is like that, you will get distracted and then you suddenly have lost 3 hours of your time. That happened quite a bit, that’s why some people hate going with me to some of these trips, because they’re just trying to hit up as many locations as possible, just to say they went there, and they’re not really absorbing the scenery like I am. I will go to a base of a mountain and look UP, just to see how tiny and meaningless I am in the grand scheme of the universe. I will go to the waterfall and maybe walk in it (weather permitting), or I might see a place I want to get to way away, and realize the only way to it is via a walking path that takes 1 hour, and I’ll just walk it regardless, to experience the thrill of the walk paying off. This is what a hiker will do to motivate himself, and I learned to do this from a renowned hiking instructor, in Colorado. That coupled with genuine curiousity and photographer curiousity, I’m going to spend too much time at a spot I know I shouldn’t do this at. Many times people have to yell to make me come back. lol The are too many places like this on Fylkesvei 63 and you will need to behave yourself to curb this habit, if you are the same way. One stop, as I thought about doing a quick 10 minute walk along the trail, I saw where the trail was heading and it went into the mountains that I couldn’t see past to determine where the trail might ultimately go, although the trail looked like it would navigate the facade of the mountain. The problem is the trail just disappeared, off into whiteness. It took me a minute to computer but when I checked the trail disappearing and then I looked at the sky, I saw that the trail disappeared into the mountain because huge, thick clouds were overtaking all of the mountains where I was standing! I wanted to do that trail, and walk into the unknown trail masked in the cloud-cover, but I couldn’t, didn’t have enough time! I can bet you that the stories of those Trolls came from Norwegians have conditions like this and walking along the countryside, in the fogged over conditions, wondering if something (a Troll) would coming running at you through the fog. That could be scary and fun, maybe not so photographic, due to the fact that I couldn’t see most of the mountain pass due to the weather conditions, but it made it extremely fun to me. I get that most don’t like that, that’s why I know who NOT to ask to come on such trips, and most times, I’ll just go solo. But I couldn’t see anything higher than the middle of most mountains, they were becoming smothered in cloud-cover, the closer we go to where the GPS was claiming that Trollstigen was located- I couldn’t see whatever this attraction was supposed to be, at all at this point. Sure enough, I knew we were getting close to going up Trollstigen, just by seeing the scenery change AGAIN, and an opening the cloudiness showed a stretch of road in Fylkesvei 63 that allowed for that we were in a valley again, at the footholds of mountains, so we were back in lower elevation, and free of. the cloud-cover – except at this point, there was now a snowed-over portion of Fylkesvei 63 that had to be navigated (road was cleared of course). You could see the snow, on the side of the road, was stacked up higher that then the vehicles, in many places. It was like navigating a maze where the piles of snow formed the walls of the maze. Serious, you can check the attached video, there is a passage there through that snowed-over area. I was the remnants of a recent late season snowstorm, complete with big chunks of snow, left and right, off the road, the green countryside giving way to more and more to the blinding, winding of the s-curved roads they lined. This was what the whole point of the road trip on Fylkesvei 63 to Trollstigen was to be, and I can validate this experience will completely be worth it for you, but you have to do it when I planned it, the start of Summer, because this strange mix of current that former weather was much different than pictures I was seeing online of these places, that looked so boring, and didn’t mirror thing I imagined would be there based on watching that viator commercial. The conditions in the commercial were more accurate to what I was seeing, and more, of course, which I figured I could maximize by going when I read the snow would still be lingering, early Summer! It was another satisfying confirmation that I wasn’t wasting my vacation time, for sure! And still, I wasn’t at Trollstigen yet, so that meant much more scenery to experience.

5 minutes later, I could see we were going uphill, off in the distance there were snowcapped mountains, and another 10 minutes, the sides of the roads, and the landscapes, were covered with snow still.  Another 10 minutes, I couldn’t even see more that 10 meters ahead! I kept looking at Google Maps, tracking the progress towards Trollstigen, because I couldn’t see anything too far in any direction! We took a little break at a turn off, and took a look forward, for where the Trollstigen was supposed to be, per Google Maps, and as a pocket in the fog opened up, and we could see that if we continued on, we’d be heading up the Trollstigen- but at this point, we really couldn’t see anything until we got in pockets of clear views in the fog passing! As we began to climb, we went into incredibly thick fog, the worst so far and we noticed a visitor center, which meant we were at the stop of the Trollstigen, thus we are at the viewpoint for Trollstigen. This was the viewpoint you’re supposed to view the entire shape of Trollstigen from, and just like the Dalsnibba viewpoint where you’re supposed to see the winding roads in Geiranger. I recognized it from the photos, well I recognized a portion of it, because I couldn’t see the full visitor center, there was too much fog, seriously! I had to take some pics of this to show people back home, it was funny that I was at the viewpoint and couldn’t see a damn thing. I started to walk out to the walkway of the viewpoint, and already I could see that it was going to be a wasted effort, due to the fog. I was getting a little pissed because I wasn’t seeing any of the scenery that I knew was supposed to be visible there, I saw in all those pictures and videos I looked up. I saw people that parked just 5 minutes before us, who walked out the walkway, quickly return in 5 minutes. If they did that, I knew that that view was not there. I had to do try to see SOMETHING, hell with that, we didn’t go all that way for nothing. When I finally made it to the viewing deck of the viewpoint, I saw why the people turned back so quickly, the whole northern portion of the mountain was engulfed in the fog and freezing up there! The conditions were right to make all that fog, and there was a higher observation deck, but that place completely too fogged up. I walked up there and it was a wash. You could not look down into the valley below, you could not see the winding roads, you could see NOTHING! All I could see was a powerful stream of water, parallel to the walkway, and the higher up on the mountain one goes, the less one can see. So that viewpoint was a bust that day. You could barely see 10 meters ahead on foot! As we saw the headlines of oncoming vehicles, we had to get super slow. It was just after noon and the lights had to come out, you could see nothing. The inexperienced drivers came around the corner too fast, so we were going slow inch by inch. Mind you, I already told you that people don’t know how to drive that many hairpin turns, without the fog, like earlier in the day so you think they’re better in the thick fog? It was hell, but it was FUN, wondering if we were going to go off a cliff or we’d get in an accident. I took some photos as we were into the fog because I knew that I could fix up the scenes better in software like Lightroom, later. I had to remove the brightness, the highlight, and dehaze a bit to the roads better visible and the things just beyond the fog, to make them better presentable and viewable in these pictures and video. To better illustrate, I’ll include a picture below this paragraph, where I had to use several techniques to try to bring out the scenery behind the dense fogging, so for you to get a sense of poor the visibility conditions really were there. Yes, people looking for a view of the famous Trollstigen, or at least a view of the full paths of Trollstigen, they’re going to be highly pissed on a foggy day like that day was, because you’re not going to be able to see out too far in front of you, so certainly, if you think you’re going to be able to see down into the valley that contains the winding road of the Trollstigen, to get a full shot of all the winding roads in 1 picture, yeaaaaaah, you were sadly disappointed. People in my party expressed how pissed they were, but what can you do, it’s nature. You can come back another day, but when I saw that cloud-cover when leaving Geirangerford, and then by the ferry I saw it coming in more, I already knew this was going to be the case the further out we went and higher up we went. I was just happy that it did not rain, and that’s just it, I knew this was going to be the condition, just this crazy, because I know that if it’s warm (Summer) in the mountains like this, but they still have snow on the ground and top of mountains, that’s a mix that scientifically is a breeding ground for thick, dense fog! There is no mistaking these conditions, I spent a lot of time in Upper New England, in the USA, and this is how it is there there, just not THAT thick. The warm air will creep in from the waters and then hit that ice water that is melting, or the land that has snow-cover, and that’s when fog sets in, that warm air passing over that cold surface below it. Think of it like any condensation you see where warm air collides with a cool window pane of glass, like when you have to de-fog your car. The process of this air flow to fog creation is what we call it the science world ‘advection’ and that fog is just water vapor condensation. Look at the picture below, and imagine how much cool surface must be there, withe warm summer air sweeping in, to create an absolutely unbearable amount of lack of visibility like that. Then realize, I used photo editing tricks to make this better so you could at least see what was behind the fog. Clearly, I cannot get any detail further scene detail other than the space you see here, nothing past there registered on the camera’s sensor. I love foggy conditions to a scene but this might just be too much, and it was incredibly windy, so I had to clean the camera every other minute. Was worth it to be in such a strange environment, I’m not sure I’d like it more on a clear day and because it wasn’t a clear day, there were not that many people out there. I get it too, if you can’t see anything outside, that would surely drive all the touristy people away, and you’d have to a different breed of person to still enjoy the spot even though you can’t fully see it. Well, part of a road trip is being on the road, traversing it, not just taking picture of the road. So, half of the experience was had and then to traverse the road under these conditions is something that you’d not get on a clear day, so would you call it a white out wash? I’d say no, because I don’t care about the photo of the road, I like this experience of traversing the land in this strange period and seeing the natural beauty that Norway possessed, which was not in hype-beast promotion blogs and videos about this place. They only details very clear days, well, this is not so clear and apparently went on for a week more under this condition.

Because we couldn’t see anything, my meetup party got pissed and they were big time mad. I told them to not give up but, no lie, I was starting to get pissed too, but then as we left the viewpoint, I started to see that we were going in between pockets of fog, and as we went lower on the Trollstigen, we would enter pockets of clear views! Ok, so all we had to do if look out for a pocket like that, although, that turned out to be easier said than done. I had to keep my eye glued because there was nothing to see for a few 10 minutes at a clip, except for the road, thus there was nothing to take a picture of. We also had to go super slow because Trollstigen has 9 different hairpin turns to go through, and there were quite a few other vehicles out there already, because Trollstigen is probably the most famous of all roads in Norway, for those in the know, and experienced drivers rave about it as the best scenic drive in Norway. Every vehicle was going really slow, because one wrong move you were going to go over the cliff or you were going to hit one of the other vehicles going in any direction- that visibility was seriously bad. That cold weather forced the air to quickly convert to all of that cool looking fog that clings to the mountains! As we started to go down Trollstigen, and the other vehicles worked out who should go first, and tried not to scrape each other, or tried not to go down into ditches, it was fun to not be able to see that far ahead but while you feel the inertia of the hairpin turns. Trollstigen is very narrow in a lot of places, and I saw a lot of bad drivers who backed us up on the way down it, because they didn’t know how to do those turns with vehicles coming in both directions, as the road is very deceiving. That was entertaining although you couldn’t get the most prized view of the Trollstigen. When we finally got into another pocket of visibility in the fog, I could see the lower bottom of Trollstigen finally, off into a valley. My hope was finally coming back, I could see down into the valley somewhat, and then I started to record some video. At that point, 75% of Trollstigen was covered in fog, but the lower 25% that was where we needed to be. Trollstigen is 675 meter (2215 mi) high and is about 10 Km long (6 mi), and still, most of it wasn’t visible when I went. People think they can cut you off and then they cause a jam up or hit another car. Now, think about how dumb that is to be selfish on a road that can only pass 1 vehicle at a time, in both directions. I noticed something in the video, because I couldn’t figure out how people were able to somehow slide over so our bus could pass, and then I realized, there are little expansions to the road that spread out a tiny bit, enough to get a few inches between yourself and the car going in the opposite direction trying to pass. Those are very tight squeezes, so people would have to know where they are, or if they overcommitted to going forward, and did not respect that little carveout of space in the roads, they could cause a backup forever. You can see it if you see this in the video when you look at the road. I couldn’t even stay on the road that long when I finally did get that quick stop for photos, like the one below. There was no space for even your body to stand and not be on the road, so I was in one of those carved out spots, but it was big enough for a vehicle to get in there. Since not a lot of people were out that day, and at the level, the fog opened a good enough pocket for us to see the waterfall, it was a perfect move on timing to take that spot, while no one was coming, and to get out, take videos and pictures, and then run back to the car before other vehicles came. When I saw a vehicle come, I ran back to the little extended road area, across the road, and had to wait for it to clear before I could get back over to the waterfall. I’d suggestion that you do a little bit of homework to time when you will make i tto these kinds of spots. There were too many cars, trucks and campers coming for me to stand there long enough, but I got some quick shots off, and got wet, but it was all worth it.

At least I got to see that portion of the planned view. Better than nothing. As we hit those earlier hairpins turns, with little visibility, one of the ladies with us, was covering up her mouth and face, and I thought she was scared – her problem was that she was getting sick from the winding roads and not being able to see where we were going, so her equilibrium was off. We still couldn’t see anything out on the valley, so I didn’t know what to look at next, until I saw some cars pulling over to the side. I thought they were in an accident or something, saw the blinkers so didn’t know what was going on. When we got closer, I heard roaring water, very loud too, and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from because I couldn’t see anything, but the car pulling over means they found something. We got close and finally crossed the thickest of the fog and found a nice pocket in the fog where the in front was starting to pull off into, on the side. I looked towards the mountain because I was trying to figure out where that sound was coming from, it was a waterfall for sure, but I couldn’t place it visually. I just knew that if that car pulled over, there has definitely a few somewhere over there. Just our luck, the other cars way ahead were gone, the cars behind were not coming anymore and we were in this pocket where we were right in front of a powerful waterfall that you could finally see now that we got in that pocket. That was a magical spot because luckily, that was exactly where there was a bridge constructed there. That spot was magical, came at the right time to we quickly took that parking space, and the poor visibility began to let up a little bit, as we went down Trollstigen. The other cars ahead of the one that stopped, they likely couldn’t see this stop when they were going down, because the fog hadn’t cleared yet.  Since most of the other tourists or adventurers were gone, I could finally get close to that waterfall, the Stigfossen. As big as that waterfall was, that was wild that we couldn’t see it with all of that fog! I saw water going down the mountain, at the viewpoint that was completely covered in fog, but I didn’t know what it was going to be this gorgeous waterfall I was now positioned in front of! When we continued, another 10 meters more, I couldn’t see down the Trollstigen again. We went all the way to the base of it, and since the fog was lifting more and more, we went back up Trollstigen, the opposite direction!  This time, I nobody was behind us, and there were not a lot of vehicles, so I hugged the road and got some 360 videos off then got out of there before someone ran me over.  When we got back into the fog, we were bumper to bumper again, because the visibility was completely lost again, and the next wave of tourists were coming. Back at the Trollstigen overlook, on the top of all of the winding roads, there was so much fog that I just put my camera away and took out the 360 camera, just to let it run and whatever it captured it would capture. There was nothing to photograph, the fog was too overwhelming. I went up to a higher elevation in that area, but I knew there would be nothing to see. Still, I tried to see if I could get another look, but it was a no go up there, there was MORE fog than in the lower elevation, so we just turned back around and left! That was another lookout area that is very known and is what you’re supposed to hit up when you get to Trollstigen, but since the view wasn’t there, some people were getting pissed. I saw people getting out of their vehicles, PISSED. This one lady started yelling her husband, and it was so sad to watch. She was belittling him because she said they came all that way and wasted her time. She asked why he didn’t look it up that the conditions were this way, and that area is known for such weather, so you can get it any time when the conditions for fog exist. They must have come a long way. She walked out to the lookout with him, complaining the whole way. 🤦🏾 So, yeah, I get it, if you want to avoid this, then you should too probably check ahead, or you’re going to get barbecued by your lady publicly. You can check a link like this, which tracks the kind of activities you can do, in a given area, and not just weather itself. Many of the weather channels have a hidden channel that lists information like this here is Accuweather’s version. Although the visibility was poor, what I did like was the mood that the area produced with all of that fog, but if you bring a woman with you here, on a day like this, nah, you’re going to catch hell from her. And just like that, I finally figured out the whole point of the Viator commercial I posted, which got me to want to do the whole Trollstigen road trip in the first place. There is a couple, led (by the male), and he took his lady to Trollstigen and the neighboring area with Troll themes, but it wasn’t sunny outside, so she is being negative to him, while he is trying to enjoy the scene and get her to enjoy the trip. She would much rather be at a girl’s trip, thotting it in Jamaica or something, but the guy took her to Norway and it’s covered in fog and clouds. I mean, I would have done the same, except I know that if the weather isn’t perfect, those people are going to check out mentally. If the reality does not meet fantasy in her head, my dude, it’s a WRAP for you. Seriously, the commercial is based on the real story that happened from that travel writer who made the commercial. That couple, in the commercial, is fighting because of the not always so sunny scenery they’re showing about multiple locations in Norway, which is beautiful to him, and not worthy of the precious eyes of his lady, so she mouths off to him. The tour guide has to try to calm the lady down and gets her to understand it’s a great land, the experience is worth it and turned her nasty attitude around using the beauty of Norway to heal her. Watch the commercial, it’s all there, look at the body language after she is checking the scenery and frowning. At Trollstigen, every time I saw a couple walking the overlook walkway in the thick fog, the female was crossing her arms, had a frown, and clearly didn’t want to be there. I saw 5 different couples like that, so that commercial stands out to me, and that’s when I realized that I should write something about this experience that I would like, but I know a lot of people expecting perfection would not like, or people who can’t enjoy a day without fully clear skies outside, would not like.

It created some Game of Thrones type scenes, real countryside views that I like. Although, by this point, I could not even see the sky, the fog was so thick, the wet, clean, countryside view and waterfall were enough for me to be happy with that trip out there to Trollstigen. I’m thinking, it’s probably better to go during August, if I go again, where it will be a few degrees warmer and there will be less fog. When the fog came in from the fjords and such, that cooler air filled up that valley under the Trollstigen and was clearing from the bottom up. I tried to get some photos from the base of Trollstigen upward, but there was too much fog, but I wanted to get pics of it so people could see how truly thick that fog was. So much so that you couldn’t even see through it from the outside either. That was an amazing experience and I think it was heightened, not worsened, by the fog. It created a creepy and scary vibe, navigating the turns, under those conditions. At least I can cross this off the bucket list and also say I stood in front of that waterfall! I didn’t see anything about this waterfall when I quickly looked up Trollstigen. I did see some water, but all the views have a body of water that looked like a stream, and that’s what it at the bottom of Trollstigen, but that was the Stigfossen waterfall that I was seeing in those photos! All in all, I think it was still a successful attempt, considering, I just couldn’t believe that the weather could change on a dime like that. That was really strange that this happened. This may be why most people don’t bother to venture out his far, unless you’re a scenic drive kind of person like I am, but it is officially one of the most notable roads in Norway and you would find it if you did a Google search for “Scenic Drives Norway”. Don’t pass it up if you get a chance to get there, and it’s free, you can’t be charged to drive it. I guess I should have known it was going to be extremely foggy out because when I watched that Viator commercial again, just about all of the video shows scenery that is completely blown out with fog! So, if you go, you better be prepared to go up and down these roads a few times, find the picture and viewpoints, map them out, and hit ALL of them because you may not see what you see online, from the designated viewpoints, so you’re going to have to work for your shots and views. Also, I put a video together and you’ll understand why you should get a bus or an RV to go through Trollstigen, because as part of checking out material people produced, I noticed that a lot of the material I saw was from low angles like in cars and motorcycles. So you don’t get a good view of what’s really going on when you’re that low because you have a lot of obstruction like the guard-rail stone, and mountain walls, the signs in the way, etc. If you are raised in elevation, in a vehicle, this is the best way to do a road trip. This is why I saw many motorcyclists with 360 cameras on long selfie sticks, pointed upward. They were aiming for the higher view and it was smart of them to do that. So when I saw cars going by, they were the worst drivers because they were trying to find angles to see over the edges and in between rails because they were too low to the ground, couldn’t see over trees and things like this. So they would be rude and hold up the lines of cars in many places, trying to get photos where they should not be stopping. If you are in a camper or bus, you just stick a camera in the window and worry about the footage later, as you look around. I just pressed my phone to the window and continues on with my conversations and looking all over from all angles, from the elevated view. The local driver also knew ALL of the best spots to be, how to avoid the crowdedness of the road, and got us the best angles considering the almost completely fogged over Trollstigen roads. While it was completely foggy, it added a really amazing air of mysticism to the area, and I know if I go back, it’s going to be a completely different experience if the weather is different, but I have to say, that fog, although it clogged the view, it HEIGHTENED the experience for me. Seeing that mix of thriving greenery of the trees, mixed with patches of snow, and then weaving in and out of the pockets of fog to reveal that powerful waterfall, that was NUTS! The bus has to work for the views too! I think if I returned on a clear day, it would be boring, after this run I had at Trollstigen. Bucket-list item complete!

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.