Slogen First Ascent: The Peak They Called Unclimbable

Key takeaways

An 1895 soil survey records that on this ridge lies the high peak Slogen at 1,589 metres, which was earlier considered unclimbable. [1]
The 1911 county survey states it in six words: Slogen was climbed for the first time by Jon Klokk from Urke. [2]
The same survey: the view from Slogen is famous, and it is remarkable because the peak is so sharp and the nearest surroundings so open and wild. [2]
Smørskredtinden is fully as high as Slogen and much harder to climb, the survey notes, but has not nearly so beautiful a view. [2]

The mountain that rises out of the water

The reason Slogen is famous is not its height. At 1,589 metres it is a moderate mountain by European standards, and there are higher summits within sight of it.

It is famous because there is nothing underneath it. The county survey puts the whole matter in one clause about the fjord: with horns and walls and glaciers in the deep cirques, Hjørundfjorden is a remarkable alpine landscape, where the peaks themselves are visible from the surface of the sea. ^[2]

In the Alps you drive up a valley for an hour before the mountain begins. Here the mountain begins at nought, and you are looking at all 1,589 metres of it from a boat.

The survey is dry about the effect, and that is what makes it convincing. The view from Slogen is famous. It is remarkable because the peak is so sharp and the nearest surroundings so open and wild. ^[2]

Earlier considered unclimbable

An 1895 survey of the soils of the county, of all things, carries the sentence that sets up the story. On this ridge, with its steep fall to Norangsfjorden, lies the high peak Slogen at 1,589 metres, which was earlier considered unclimbable. ^[1]

Then the 1911 county survey answers it without ceremony: Slogen was climbed for the first time by Jon Klokk from Urke. ^[2]

Urke is a hamlet on the fjord shore, a few houses and a jetty. The man who first stood on the most photographed peak in Sunnmøre came from it. That is worth stating plainly, because the story of Norwegian mountaineering is usually told as a story of visiting Englishmen, and here the survey gives the first ascent to a local.

Klokk kept working afterwards. A 1924 account of a climb recalls losing something out of a pocket on the way up, on the first time on Slogen with Jon Klokk as guide. ^[7] The first man up became the man you hired.

The Englishman at Øye

The visiting climbers are in the record too, and the most significant of them is Cecil Slingsby, the Yorkshireman who did more than anyone to open Norwegian mountaineering to the outside world.

The 1890 Sunnmøre guidebook thanks him directly: Cecil Slingsby, who has kindly supplied notes on a number of interesting tourist routes in the interior of Hjørundfjord. ^[3] He was not a passing visitor; he was a source.

He came back. In August 1899 Søndmørsposten reported that Mr Slingsby was at Øye with his family, and that he had been up on Slogen and several other peaks in Hjørundfjorden. ^[4]

And he had been at it a long time. A note in Romsdals Amtstidende in 1890 records that Hovden attempted a peak together with Slingsby in 1876, but is not certain whether he reached the highest top. ^[5] Not certain whether he reached the top is an honest sentence, and rare.

A 1924 walking guide describes his method on this fjord: Slingsby went from Molaup by Hjørundfjorden straight up, following a line of his own. ^[6] Molaup is at sea level. Straight up means from the water.

Two records that are not about Englishmen

The best two entries in the whole climbing record here belong to other people entirely.

In June 1925 Søndmørsposten reported the parish tradition: it was said in the village that the first lady to climb Kolåstinden was the well-known and undaunted Mrs Betzy Kjelsberg. ^[8]

Betzy Kjelsberg was Norway's first female factory inspector and one of the leading figures of the country's women's movement, and Kolåstinden is a serious mountain. The paper reports it as village talk rather than as documented fact, and that is how it is offered here.

The other is shorter. In 1924 a paper recorded that the youngest peak-climber ever to have climbed Slogen in Hjørundfjord, which is 5,060 feet high, is a hotel-keeper's eleven-year-old. ^[7]

Slogen was unclimbable in one generation and an eleven-year-old's day out two generations later. Nothing about the mountain changed.

The other peaks you can see

The fjord shows you a wall of them, and the old survey rates them against each other without much politeness.

Smørskredtinden is fully as high as Slogen and much harder to climb, but has not nearly so beautiful a view. ^[2] A harder climb for a worse result, stated as a fact.

Directly opposite Slogen stands Jakta. Jakta lies on the south side of Norangsfjorden, right across from Slogen, and its shape is not so beautiful as Slogen's. ^[2] A Norwegian Tourist Association yearbook of 1882 had already picked it out from the water: far inside Hjørundfjorden one sees a high, round-topped, always bare mountain, and it is Jakta. ^[10]

For the climbers of the 1920s the favourites were elsewhere again. Of the peaks that were to be climbed, Søndmørsposten wrote in 1925, Saudehornet and Kolåstinden were the most sought after, and in fine clear weather a cheerful party always set out. ^[8]

A glacier named after a date

One more entry, because it is the kind of thing only a local paper records.

In July 1933 Sunnmørsposten noted, as a mark of how hot the summer had been, that the Olsok glacier in Skopshornet went on 4 July, and explained the name: it is called that because it usually goes at Olsok. ^[9]

Olsok is 29 July, Saint Olav's day. A patch of snow on a mountain above this fjord was named for the day of the year it normally disappears, and its melting three weeks early was news.

The mountains here were not scenery to the people who lived under them. They were a calendar, a grazing resource, and a hazard. Skandinaven's report in 1936 that a young woman, Helene Midtgaard, was killed on Skopshornet in Sykkylven is the other side of the same relationship. ^[11]

Seeing Slogen from the RIB

The safari runs into Hjørundfjord and past the mouth of Norangsfjorden, which is the classic angle on the peak.

Look for the sharpest thing on the skyline rather than the highest. That is the whole point of Slogen, and it is what the surveyor meant by calling it remarkable because the peak is so sharp and the surroundings so free and wild. ^[2]

In a RIB you are low on the water, which exaggerates the height rather than flattening it. The 1,589 metres begin about a metre below your seat.

Slogen in the record

1876
Hovden attempts a peak with Slingsby, and is not certain whether he reached the highest top. ^[5]
1890
The Sunnmøre guidebook thanks Cecil Slingsby for notes on routes in the interior of Hjørundfjord. ^[3]
1895
The soil survey records Slogen at 1,589 m, earlier considered unclimbable. ^[1]
August 1899
Slingsby is at Øye with his family, having been up Slogen and several other peaks. ^[4]
1911
The county survey names the first ascent: Jon Klokk from Urke. ^[2]
1924
A hotel-keeper's eleven-year-old becomes the youngest ever to climb it. ^[7]
1925
The parish says the first woman up Kolåstinden was Betzy Kjelsberg. ^[8]
1933
The Olsok glacier in Skopshornet melts on 4 July, three weeks early. ^[9]

Look up from sea level

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Before you book

How high is Slogen?

1,589 metres, according to the county survey and the 1895 soil survey ^[1] ^[2], which one 1924 paper gave in the old measure as 5,060 feet. ^[7] What matters more than the number is that it rises straight from sea level: the survey describes Hjørundfjorden as an alpine landscape where the peaks themselves are visible from the surface of the sea. ^[2]

Who climbed it first?

Jon Klokk from Urke, a hamlet on this fjord, according to the 1911 county survey. ^[2] He later worked as a guide on the mountain: a 1924 account describes a climb made with Jon Klokk as guide. ^[7]

Was it really thought unclimbable?

The 1895 soil survey says so directly: the high peak Slogen, 1,589 metres, was earlier considered unclimbable. ^[1] Two generations later a hotel-keeper's eleven-year-old had been up it. ^[7]

Who was Cecil Slingsby?

An English mountaineer central to the opening of Norwegian climbing. The 1890 Sunnmøre guidebook thanks him for notes on routes in the interior of Hjørundfjord ^[3], and in August 1899 he was at Øye with his family, having climbed Slogen and several other peaks here. ^[4] A 1924 guide records that he went from Molaup straight up, on a line of his own. ^[6]

Is Slogen the hardest peak here?

No. The county survey states that Smørskredtinden is fully as high and much harder to climb, but has not nearly so beautiful a view. ^[2] Slogen's reputation rests on its shape and its outlook, not on difficulty.

Who was the first woman up Kolåstinden?

Søndmørsposten reported in 1925 that it was said in the parish to have been the well-known and undaunted Mrs Betzy Kjelsberg. ^[8] The paper offers it as village tradition rather than as record, and so does this page.

What is the peak opposite Slogen?

Jakta, on the south side of Norangsfjorden. The survey notes that its shape is not so beautiful as Slogen's ^[2], while a Norwegian Tourist Association yearbook of 1882 picked it out from the water as a high, round-topped, always bare mountain. ^[10]

Can I see Slogen from the boat?

Yes, and from the best possible angle. The safari runs past the mouth of Norangsfjorden, and from a low boat the full height reads properly. Look for the sharpest outline rather than the highest: the survey calls it remarkable precisely because the peak is so sharp and the surroundings so open and wild. ^[2]