30-Year-Old Trail Runner Dies After a Fall on Norway’s Romsdalseggen Ridge

Ida Amelie Robsahm, the Norwegian who was second at the Marathon du Mont-Blanc in June and fourth at Zegama-Aizkorri in May, died on Saturday after a fall near the top of Romsdalseggen, a ridge above the town of Åndalsnes in western Norway. She had turned 30 four days earlier.

Police were alerted at 10:35 a.m. by the one other person on the ridge with her. She had fallen several tens of meters. “The woman has fallen on a fairly steep part and from a great height,” Eivind Klokkersund, the police operations leader, told VG around midday, when she was still listed as seriously injured. An air ambulance and a rescue helicopter were sent to the ridge. Police confirmed her death that afternoon and her body was taken to hospital. Everything indicated an accident, Klokkersund told the news agency NTB.

The fall happened close to the high point of the ridge, 1,329 meters (4,360 feet) up, on a day of rain and fog, according to Kondis. Rescuers worked at Mjelvaskaret, a gap in the traverse, Romsdals Budstikke reported. NRK named her on Monday, in consultation with her family.

“In the midst of the deep sorrow over the loss of Ida, we want to extend a warm thank you to the running community,” her family said in a statement to NRK. “Ida was a big part of that community, and all the care and concern in this terrible situation means a great deal.” The statement, and the quotes from her coach below, are translated from Norwegian.

Robsahm was from Bærum, outside Oslo. She ran for Sportsklubben Vidar and taught maths and chemistry at Foss upper secondary school.

Her climb through the sport took four years. The first result on her UTMB profile is the Stranda Fjord Trail Race in August 2022, a 25K on the Norwegian west coast, where she was 27th among the women. By this season she was inside the top five at the biggest single-day races on the circuit.

The progression is easiest to read at the two races she kept going back to. At the Marathon du Mont-Blanc she was 18th in 2023, 14th in 2024, eighth in 2025 and second in June in 4:18:28. At Zegama-Aizkorri, ninth, then seventh, then fourth this May. She won the women’s race at the Chianti Marathon Trail in March. At the OCC on Aug. 27 she ran 6:27:34 for fifth, the placing she also took there in 2025, in a race Lauren Gregory won by three seconds.

She was fourth over 44.5K at last year’s World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Canfranc, Spain. In December she ran her first marathon, in Valencia, and went under 2:30 at the first attempt with 2:29:57, the fastest Norwegian woman in the field, according to Kondis.

“Ida was a remarkable athlete and teammate,” the Asics Trail team, which she raced for, said in a post on Instagram. “Her warmth and kindhearted nature touched many of us at ASICS and the running community.”

Her death comes less than three weeks after Kalie McCrystal, the Canadian skyrunner, disappeared on the Italian side of the Matterhorn while scouting a route for a record attempt. McCrystal’s family have said they accept she fell.

Sindre Buraas, who coached Robsahm, was in Copenhagen commentating at the World Road Running Championships for NRK when the news reached him. “It came as a shock. You cannot take it in right away,” he told the broadcaster. “She was in a place, in terrain and in surroundings where she had been so much, so comfortable. She was torn away from us and from her life. It leaves deep marks. It is bottomlessly sad in every way.”