(Source BBC / Credit: Morten Falch Sortland/Getty Images)
- Preikestolen is among Norway’s most hiked trails, with 331,000 visitors reaching its exposed top in 2019. Its stone stairway was built by Nepalese Sherpas.
- Around 300 stone mountain stairways have been built in Norway over the past two decades.
Mike MacEacheran / BBC Travel »
In many ways, the location and the sublime views from Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, near Stavanger in south-west Norway are irrelevant, because what is important is the journey to get there. It is a hike up an expertly engineered and well-maintained stone staircase that is as much of a marvel as the finale itself.
There’s an ancient beauty to the stairway and it comes from the fact that Preikestolen – like nearly 300 other natural stone staircase projects in Norway purpose-built over the past two decades – has been crafted by teams of Sherpas from Nepalese communities living in the shadows of Mount Everest.
There was a time when Norway’s mountain paths would only see a handful of local visitors. But social media has changed all that, and over the past decade, the country has seen such a dramatic spike in overseas travellers keen to Instagram its viewpoints that something has had to give.