Turtagrø is a hotel in the municipality of Luster in

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

county, Norway, near

Hurrungane Hurrungane (also written ''Hurrungene'', ''Hurrungadn'', ''Horungane'') is a mountain range in Luster Municipality and Årdal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The area is southwest in the larger mountain range Jotunheimen and is also part ...

Jotunheimen Jotunheimen (; "the home of the Jötunn") is a mountainous area of roughly in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all located in the Jotunheimen mountains, in ...

. The hotel has been a central meeting place for mountaineers from the late 1800s.

Location

Turtagrø is located near the old mountain route and current road

Sognefjellsvegen The Sognefjellsvegen or Sognefjellsveien is the highest mountain pass road in Northern Europe. Part of County Road 55, it is located in Innlandet and Vestland counties in Norway. It is a national tourist road and starts in the village of Lom in ...

, north of

in Jotunheimen. It can be a starting point for hiking tours to Fannaråken,

Skogadalsbøen Skogadalsbøen is a cabin in Luster in Vestland, Norway, in the western part of Jotunheimen, owned by the Norwegian Trekking Association The Norwegian Trekking Association (, DNT) is a Norwegian association which maintains mountain trails and ...

and the peaks and ridges of Hurrungane, including climbing the Store Skagastølstind.

History

The first hotel at Turtagrø was built in 1888 by mountain guide Ola Berge. Later the same year a second hotel was built by Ole Øiene, only 100 metres apart. Turtagrø was a central meeting place for the pioneers of

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

in Jotunheimen from the late 1800s, and among the early visitors were

William Cecil Slingsby William Cecil Slingsby (1849–1929) was an English mountain climber and alpine explorer born in Bell Busk, near Gargrave, Yorkshire. In 1863 his family moved to Carleton where they opened a cotton spinning and weaving mill which operated for ...

, Howard Priestman and Carl Hall. The two hotels merged in 1911, when Berge bought the other hotel from Øiene. After Berge's death in 1928, his daughter Kari Berge was running the hotel. The road

, which passes Turtagrø, was finished in 1938. In 1938 the climbing association Norsk Tindeklub also built their own cabin in Skagadalen, and these events eventually contributed to a change in Turtagrø's role and the type of visitors. On 28 April 1940, during the closing days of the Norwegian Campaign in South Norway, German

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

from the Norwegian 2nd Division's abandoned Lom prisoner of war camp and their guards arrived at Turtagrø. The prisoners and guards spent the night at Turtagrø on their way west to

Vadheim Vadheim is a village in the municipality of Høyanger in Vestland county, Norway. It is located on the north shore of the Sognefjorden, along the small Vadheimsfjorden branch. The European route E39 highway runs through the village. It is locat ...

Sogn Sogn is a traditional district in Western Norway (''Vestlandet''). It is located in the county of Vestland, surrounding the Sognefjord, the largest/longest fjord in Norway. The district of Sogn consists of the municipalities of Aurland, Balestra ...

. The weakest of the prisoners were left under guard at the hotel, later to be retrieved by snow sleds. From 1953 the hotel was run by Johannes Drægni. In 1962 Drægni established the first climbing school in Norway, Den Norske Klatreskole, at Turtagrø. The climbing school operated until 1975. Ole Berge Drægni was running the hotel from 1997. In 2001 the old main building burned down in a fire. A new hotel building opened in 2002. Ole Berge Drægni perished in the tsunami in Thailand in 2004, and his then four-year-old daughter Sofie inherited the majority of the stocks.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Turtagro Hotels established in 1888 Hotels in Vestland 1888 establishments in Norway