Trollpikken

About

Dear children have many names - our spectacular, phallus-shaped stone information needs only one: Trollpikken. Do as Espen Askeladd, put some goodies in your backpack and get your legs going.  25,000 others did so in the year of the Lord 2017. An adventurous trip of 2.3 kilometers each way is suitable for both Per and Pål and other happy walkers along the asphalt, gravel road and path.

Trollpikken is a phenomenon created by the ice during the last ice age that ended about 10,000 years ago. Trollpikken is today in a beautiful cultural landscape, where the rock in the area is anorthosite. Anorthosite is a plutonic rock formed by magma deep beneath a large mountain range about 1 billion years ago. Long before it was known that anorthosite is the same rock as on the surface of the moon, the area here was called lunar landscape, as the area had sparse vegetation and was not very fertile. The area is characterized by the fact that it is shaped by ice, and you will find several signs from the movement of the ice. One of the clearer signs is moving blocks that are scattered around in the landscape, and which moved on and was transported here by the ice.

Trollpikken is such a moving block, but it has only been moved very briefly and never got off to the right place, but got stuck and fell out and remained in its position when the ice melted back. Trollpikken is also made of moonstone anorthosite.

Get there: From the parking lot on fv. 62, follow Kjervallveien up Kjervallbakken 900 meters. On the way up the hill you can see many large boulders. At the signpost, turn right down the Opplev Dalane trail that comes from Ørsdalen and continues to Vannbassengan. Follow the path through a gate and over the stream, turn left right after the bridge. Follow the blue-marked path up to Trollpikken. The path passes under the power lines and goes to the right around the pond just before you arrive. Out on the edge you can see Egersund. When you go up from the pond, Trollpikken will come to sight. Same way back.

Trollpikken has its own website where you can read the story about Trollpikken.

Text from Dalane Friluftsråd and Magma UNESCO Global Geopark

Grazing animals.