DNT - the Norwegian Trekking Association, full Norwegian name Den Norske Turistforening - is the membership organization that maintains Norway's mountain hut network and the country's marked trail system. The organization was founded in 1868 by the Norwegian climber and writer Thomas Heftye, making it one of the oldest hiking organizations in the world. It is run as a federation of regional chapters and currently has approximately 320,000 members in a country of 5.5 million.
The DNT operates over 550 mountain cabins ranging from large staffed lodges (Gjendebu, Memurubu, Glitterheim, Tungestølen) where guests book private rooms and eat in a dining hall, to medium-sized self-service huts where visitors let themselves in with a key and cook with stocked provisions, to small unmanned huts in remote terrain. The cabins are connected by approximately 22,000 kilometers of marked summer trails and a further 7,000 kilometers of winter routes - one of the most developed mountain trail networks anywhere in the world. The system is essentially run on trust, with members keeping a running tab and settling at the end of each season.
DNT membership is genuinely worth taking out for any visitor planning more than a single overnight in the mountain country. Membership currently costs roughly NOK 800 per year for adults, includes a key (the universal DNT-nøkkel) that opens the unstaffed self-service huts across the entire network, and pays back over a single weekend of hut use through reduced cabin rates. International visitors can join through dnt.no with a credit card; the membership is processed within a day or two.
Beyond the practical infrastructure, the DNT is one of the cultural institutions that defines the way Norwegians relate to their mountain country. The annual DNT publication Mountain Hiking has been continuously produced in Norwegian since the 1880s. The organization's volunteer trail-marking program - every red T-mark you see on a Norwegian rock has been painted by a volunteer - keeps the network functional. The Norwegian Mountain Code is a DNT publication. Most of our hiking and ski-touring trips spend at least one or two nights in DNT-network accommodation. See Sea to summit.