Several of Norway's tallest waterfalls pour into Romsdalen as though the mountains cannot hold their water. Mongefossen drops 773 meters, with its longest free-fall at 300 meters, ranking it among the fifteen tallest waterfalls on Earth. Nearby, Olmaaafossen tumbles 720 meters and Dontefossen reaches 700 meters with a single drop of 200 meters. Even Vermafossen, at 380 meters, would dominate most other valleys. The side valley of Isterdalen adds Stigfossen, which plunges 239 meters beside the hairpin turns of Trollstigen -- the mountain pass road that opened in 1936 and has been twisting the nerves of drivers ever since. Around Remmem and Flatmark, the valley floor is littered with enormous boulders that have fallen from the surrounding heights, evidence of a landscape still actively reshaping itself.

Trollveggen rises roughly 1,100 meters from base to summit in a near-vertical sweep that makes it the tallest vertical rock face in Europe. The wall is part of the Trolltindene massif, where Store Trolltind reaches 1,788 meters and Kalskratinden tops out at 1,803 meters. William Cecil Slingsby, the English mountaineer who opened so many Norwegian routes, visited Romsdalen in 1875 and recognized its potential. Local climber Arne Randers Heen later built on that legacy with several first ascents. Today the Romsdalen Alps remain one of Northern Europe's most important climbing venues. Above the valley, the rock formation known as Mannen hangs unstable, monitored by geologists who expect it to eventually collapse into the valley below -- potentially damming the river and threatening communities downstream with catastrophic flooding.

For centuries Romsdalen was the corridor between Norway's interior and the coast. Farmers and miners from the eastern uplands followed the valley to reach the ocean, and since at least the year 1500 the annual market near Andalsnes ranked as the largest trading gathering outside Bergen and Trondheim. The iron works at Lesjaverk shipped their products down the valley to the port at Veblungsnes. Until about 1844, the path was fit only for walking and riding -- when it finally became drivable, it was one of just two road connections between east and west in all of Norway. The Rauma Line railway arrived in 1924, and for half a century it served as the sole rail link between More og Romsdal county and eastern Norway. Today the E136 highway remains the only east-west road in the region that avoids a mountain pass altogether.

When German forces invaded Norway on April 9, 1940, they seized Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim in a single day. But Andalsnes and the towns of More og Romsdal remained free -- Andalsnes was the only unoccupied port with a railway connection south of Trondheim. British troops landed there beginning April 12, with the main force of the 148th Infantry Brigade arriving on April 17 under Major General Bernard Paget. They pushed south toward Dombas, a critical road and rail junction. Meanwhile, Norway's entire national gold reserve was being evacuated from Oslo through Romsdalen to Andalsnes and Molde, then shipped north to Tromso. The valley that had carried iron and timber and market goods for centuries found itself carrying the wealth of a nation fleeing invasion. Centuries earlier, in 1612, three hundred Scottish mercenaries had marched through the same valley toward Sweden, only to meet their end at the Battle of Kringen.

Tourism arrived in the nineteenth century, brought largely by wealthy English anglers who discovered the Rauma's exceptional salmon fishing. General William Bromley-Davenport purchased Fiva farm in 1849 along with the twelve best kilometers of the river. An English hotel owner laid out Norway's first golf course at Holgenes hotel in 1905. The valley has continued to attract attention in unexpected forms: crime novelist Jo Nesbo, who grew up in nearby Molde, placed his fictional detective Harry Hole's hometown in Andalsnes. And in the 1995 survival horror video game Clock Tower: The First Fear, the game's primary setting sits in the mountains of Romsdalen -- a fitting backdrop for a place where rock formations are named after trolls and the landscape itself seems designed to unsettle.