Trollstigen (Norway)

The "Troll's Ladder" is an 11-hairpin road carved into a near-vertical mountainside in western Norway, with a gradient of 9% and two lanes barely wide enough for a single bus. Stigfossen waterfall drops 1,050 feet beside the road, spraying mist across the pavement at the tightest turns. The viewing platform at the top cantilevers over the edge, offering a vertigo-inducing view of the road snaking below. Open only from late May to October, Trollstigen is engineering defiance — a road that has no business existing, built because Norwegians decided a mountain wasn't going to stop them.