Hiking Norway’s most famous hike: Trolltunga – and where to park the van

If you you’re not that into hiking, go to Norway, then decide again.

I think I’m into hiking now.

After the Pulpit Rock hike (see this post: Hiking Pulpit Rock), we headed straight to the next one: Trolltunga – probably Norway’s most famous, and most photographed, hike.

That’s what I’ll show you in this post, and near the end I’ll show you where to park the van.

We’re in the South West of Norway. Here…

First, you ‘hike’ 4km to the start of the hike

There is a shuttle bus up and down here. But you have to wait around, and it costs. Better to walk.

The actual trail starts after that 4km hairpin road

And then you walk

And walk

The rock stacks help mark the way

You must start early if you don’t want to walk in the dark

But it is a well trodden path

The views and the light and the colours are just amazing

After 13km, you get to a queue of people

This is the main attraction: the ‘Troll’s Tongue’ rock

I walked out to the end of it

And sat to take it all in

Until my turn was over: NEXTTTTT

I step back and think: this is one of the strangest spectacles of human behaviour I’ve ever seen

This guy proposed

This is a REALLY brilliant hike without the troll’s tongue!

The hike is just as good, if not better, than the actual ‘attraction’ – especially if you’re not into crowds and queues. The Troll’s tongue is just a nice fun thing at the end, in my opinion.

Here’s where to park with a car or van

I found this confusing so I’ll try to clear it up here. There are three places to park:

1. Tyssedal. This is used as overflow parking. It’s the cheapest one but you’ll have to get a shuttle bus from here to Skjeggedal or the start of the hike.
2. Skjeggedal. This is the main parking area. The road to here is a small mountain road and you’ll have to pass a sign that says ‘no motorhomes’. This is the parking we camped in. It cost a whopping 500NOK (about 50Euro)
3. Mågelitopp (aka the ‘top car park’). This is closed to the start of the hike but is limited to about 30 cars. Parking here will cut off a total of 8km from your walk compared to parking in Skjeddedal.

Have you been here? feel free to share your tips and experience with us.

I also made a video for this (after requests for more video) but I’m still editing it. I’ll post it separately, here on the blog 🙂