Trillemarka - Rollagsfjell

The last big wilderness forest area of Norway

bilde

A Norwegian hotspot

In central part of eastern Norway, on the border between Sigdal and Numedal valleys, you can find the last of the last big wilderness forest areas of Norway. 205 km2 continuous mountain old growth forests, with the last fairly intact extensive valley, named Trillemarka. The area is situated 100 km west of the capital Oslo.

This website is an attempt to offer a collection of information about this beautiful area. Unfortunately the site is being more and more down prioritized by both its webmaster and its main author, and so the information is not always up to date. Also, the English translations are seriously neglected - not much information is available at all in English (and even more so in German). On the pages that do have a translation, you will find a link below the text. At the writing moment this notably includes only the frontpage (this page) and some pages under flora/fauna. If you have any questions/ suggestions or would like to help by submittin a translation, you're welcome to send a mail to "webmaster 'at' trillemarka 'dot' no" or the main author; "dag 'at' trillemarka 'dot' no" (of course replacing 'at' and 'dot').

The last wilderness

Photo: Ron Bruinvis

Trillemarka - Rollagsfjell has all the qualities of the original Norwegian forests:
A broken country with untouched valleys and mountain sides, rivers and spectacular small and big lakes, very old trees and forests, and a huge amount of species dependent on natural forest dynamics.
The area constitute a paradise for outdoor recreation and experience of virgin forests and untouched nature, and it is the last bastion for a lot of redlisted species.

Norway is at the bottom of forest protection in the boreal forests. Caused by an intensive forestry, spread around in the most of the forests, there are very little old growth forests left, and especially large, continuous wilderness areas are rear.
Among 40 known areas larger than 10 km2, Trillemarka - Rollagsfjell is the largest and the most valuable of them.

Eastern parts of the Trillemarka-valley: Threatened species

In Trillemarka - Rollagsfjell there are a lot of endangered species. In Norway 1.405 forest dwelling species are at the national red list, and scientists estimates more than 1.000 species to have their main threat in the clear-cut based forestry, which is the main-stream cutting method in Norway.
Sigdal community got in 1990 ca 80% ownership of the area Trillemarka as a gift. Trillemarka is the eastern and most productive part. Until then no forestry or roads of importance had been done in the area for three decades.
Findings of some endangered species is marked on the map and described on flora/fauna.

vulpinus lethargica

Among the redlisted species in Trillemarka - Rollagsfjell you can find Lesser Spotted Woodpecker Tree-toed Woodpecker, Siberian Jay, Stock Dove and Golden Eagle. A lot of endangered lichens, mosses and fungi are also found in the area. The Norwegian Institute of Nature Science has classified the area as a national protection-worthy area. Some is described here, and their findings marked on the map; easy to recognize is usnea longissima(long threads of lichen on spruce-threes and the intensely coloured and poisonous vulpinus lethargica(picture to the right) and lichen mjuktjafs.

Trillemarka has until now, been unknown as a virgin wilderness area, but still more is getting interested in this magnifiscent nature old growth forest. Also through the eyes of professional nature photographers.

In august 2002 the assosiation of professional nature photographers in Norway had a photo session over a weekend in Trillemarka Rollogsfjell. Their best photos is exhibited on different places in Norway.

Tom Schandy

To the right is Tom Schandy, chairman of the Union of Norwegian nature-photographers, former leader of the Norwegian division of WWF (World Wildlife Fund), taking a picture of lichens in Trillemarka. Articles of Trillemarka is written in norwegian magazines, programmed on TV, and more is planned.

From the exhibition '48 hours in Trillemarka' (copyright Tom Schandy)

Under "Bilder" in the left menu, you can find a growing collection of pictures from the area, taken both by professionals and hikers. Also a drawn map has clickable points (coming soon) where you may see the view in pop-up windows. Above is a picture from the exhibition "48 hours in Trillemarka" (copyright Tom Schandy)

TV team rigging

Teamwork for a television-programme presenting Trillemarka on national broadcasting in Norway and Denmark. The 30 minute-programme has been seen by more than 1 million people in Scandinavia.

Foreign journalists, photographers and tourists will be welcome. Please contact the sites constructor on mail.

An article will come in the German Photo Magazine ... in april 2003
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Protected at last

After long lasting negotiations with the local authorities and land owners, a small part of 43 km² was protected on December 13, 2002 and was on January 8, 2008 decided to be expanded to 147 km².
Norway has still protected only 1% of our forests. In a Report evaluation the Norwegian Forest Protection status scientists says approx 5 % is a minimum protection level. We see the protection of Trillemarka as a sign the Norwegian government means to follow up on this report.

The area constitute a paradise for outdoor recreation and experience of virgin forests and untouched nature, and it is the last bastion for a lot of redlisted species. Under "Friluftsliv" you can find suggested trips in the area, info about fishing and a map. Though most it is written in Norwegian, we hopefully will have time to translate more soon. Meanwhile, you can use Google translator to get a preliminary translation, like
this (unfortunately, Google maps won't work from google translated pages).
See "Adkomst" (Arrival), for how you get there.