Mårbu to Solheimstulen. Not sure about the distance as I forgot to take notes, maybe 15 km?

After my trips, skiing or other, I always realize that I’ve only taken photos of the main “attraction” and have few or none of the things around it. The huts, the meals, the breaks, the equipment. And I’ve fallen into the same trap this time.

At least I have this one of our room at the Mårbu hut. It’s reasonably typical of what the rooms in the DNT huts look like. Solidly built bunk beds, pine floors, maybe a chair or a small table. Hooks on the wall. Possibly a small stove for heating. Pillow and duvet covered in DNT fabric.

There was no doubt that we were getting closer to civilization today. No more untracked trails – now we had snowmobile tracks to follow. Which can be convenient at times, but they can also be icy and uneven, and more work than they’re worth, so we ski next to them.

As we came further down the mountain, trees appeared and then filled up the valleys. After a while the snowmobile tracks were the only open ground where we could ski. Once your skis get into the snowmobile groove, there’s no way to control your descent, though. As the descent got steeper and steeper, and the tracks deeper and deeper, we had to get off our skis and walk down.

Then we had a few hours’ wait at Solheimstulen hut for a taxi to take us to Geilo. In Geilo we were staying at an actual hotel (that had seen better days but was still pretty grand) and ate dinner on a white tablecloth. Something of a shock after the mountain huts.

The food on this trip was mostly quite uninspired, and they really did not know how to handle vegetables. I think three of our dinners included boiled carrots with absolutely no flavouring. I guess it’s a Norwegian thing. The dinner at Geiterygghytta was a rare exception.