Lean on the glass at the end of a platform pushed thirty meters out of a mountainside

A viewing platform of steel and laminated pine runs thirty meters straight out of a mountainside above the Aurlandsfjord, four meters wide, with nothing underneath it. At the far end it stops in a sheet of glass, and the glass is the only thing between the end of the deck and 650 meters of air.

Getting up there is a road of switchbacks out of Flåm, narrow enough and steep enough that the regional advice is to leave the car at the bottom and take the bus. The trees give out, the fjord appears a long way below, and it goes on getting further below for the rest of the climb.

The platform is short and everybody walks it slowly. The deck runs out level, and then there are the last few meters where the only thing in front is glass, with Aurlandsvangen down at the water looking like a model of itself and boats drawing lines across the fjord. Nobody leans on it straight away. Everybody leans on it in the end, and stays a great deal longer than the walk out took.

The platform is 30 meters long and 4 wide, 650 meters above the Aurlandsfjord, built of steel and laminated pine with a glass front, designed by Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen and completed in 2006. It stands on the national tourist route over Aurlandsfjellet, known as the snow road, and the regional tourist board recommends the park and ride bus from Flåm over driving the narrow, steep road.