Trolltunga, Norway

Trolltunga — Norwegian for "the troll's tongue" — is a slab of rock that juts out horizontally from a mountainside in Ullensvang Municipality, Vestland county, Norway, at an elevation of about 1,126 metres (3,694 ft) above sea level. The cliff itself overhangs roughly 700 metres (2,300 ft) above the north shore of the lake Ringedalsvatnet, with nothing beneath it but air and water. Geologically it is part of the region's ancient Precambrian gneiss bedrock, carved into its current shape by glacial erosion around 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, when meltwater froze in cracks in the rock and split away large angular blocks that the retreating glacier carried off.

Until 2010, fewer than 800 people a year made the trek out to Trolltunga. That changed fast: by 2016, an estimated 80,000 hikers were completing the 27-kilometre (17-mile) round trip from the village of Skjeggedal, a demanding hike of 10 to 12 hours with about 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) of elevation gain and no shelters or supply points along the route. The trailhead sits roughly 17 kilometres (11 miles) from the town of Odda; since 2017, a toll road and shuttle bus up to a plateau at Måglitopp have offered hikers a shorter alternative starting point. The hike is only open to the public from around mid-June to mid-September, once winter snow and ice have cleared from the route.

In this photograph, a single hiker stands at the very tip of the ledge, dwarfed by the scale of the landscape — snow-streaked peaks rising on both sides of the fjord-like lake below, with a waterfall threading down the cliffs to the right. As a jigsaw, the scene splits into large, confident regions: the pale sky and snowfields go first, the deep blue water next, and the fine-grained rock texture of the overhanging slab itself — along with the tiny silhouette of the hiker — makes a satisfying final section to piece together.