Number in series 26; Year of publication 1932 - Fell and Rock ...

THE ROMSDAL 189couloirs Whether the tigers of the Norwegian AlpineClub have forced a route anywhere up this face of the Troldtinder,I don't know. The normal way of ascent is to turn them fromthe rear over a high perched glacier and so on to one or otherof the pinnacles.The Romsdalhorn was very much as I remembered it, amountain that once seen you can't forget, any more than youcould forget the Matterhom. It is all made of tawny rock;grass and bushes try to climb up its face from the valley, but theydon't get far, the bushes cling precariously and the grass petersout exhausted. The Voengetinder stood back behind theRomsdalhorn with a raking summit ridge like a coxcomb. Up abranch valley to the north-west the twin peaks of Istradal madebeautiful cones with graciously contoured flanks. Mjolnir, finestand most difficult of all the Romsdal mountains lay behindVoengetind unseen.We had but one climbing day and we elected to do theRomsdalhorn. It is an interesting mountain, from an Englishpoint of view, since, like our own Pillar Rock, it was first climbedby a dalesman, and about the same time that Atkinson climbedthe Pillar. One evening, in their cups, two young fellows daredeach other to make the ascent. And they succeeded, after muchmutual pulling and pushing, in getting to the top. TheRomsdalhorn is not at all a difficult mountain ; if you strike thecorrect route there are few pitches much harder than the upperreaches of the Old West above the Low Man. Nevertheless, theRomsdalers' feat makes Atkinson's effort look rather pale. Forthe Romsdalhorn is a mountain and not a rock, it is nearly5,000 feet high, and if you miss the intricate scrambling routeyou can land yourself in rock-climbing of any degree ofdifficulty to your heart's content. Atkinson could see his routealmost from start to finish, the young Norwegians had to workout theirs, and they had to keep their courage up, not for a fewhundred, but for several thousand feet of rockwork. On thetop, indeed, their courage suddenly ebbed—they built a hugestone man, then they looked down the sheer precipices to theRomsdal valley far below and saw the great river that theyknew like a thin winding blue riband. They looked down theway they had ascended, and that seemed pretty terrific, too;they dared not face it, and for two days they remained on top,