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. It was founded in 1868 on the initiative of Thomas Heftye. Today it is a federation of 53 member associations with local chapters, and it has more than 300,000 members.
The DNT has around 600 cabins, from staffed lodges (Gjendesheim, Glitterheim, Fondsbu, Tungestølen) where guests book rooms and eat in a dining hall, to self-service huts where visitors let themselves in with a key and buy food from a stocked pantry, to unstaffed huts with a kitchen but no pantry. They are linked by more than 23,000 kilometers of marked summer routes and 6,400 kilometers of marked winter routes in southern Norway. At the self-service and unstaffed huts the system runs on trust: guests sign the hut book and pay for their night and their food in the DNT app.
DNT membership is worth taking out for any visitor planning several nights in the huts. An adult membership costs NOK 885 for 2027, and on full board at DNT Oslo og Omegn's staffed lodges the member discount earns that back in three nights. Only members can get the standard DNT-nøkkel that opens the self-service and unstaffed huts, against a NOK 100 deposit, and at least one person in every party staying at those huts must be a member. Visitors from abroad can join online; a key posted abroad takes 12 to 16 days on average.
Beyond the practical infrastructure, the DNT is one of the cultural institutions that defines the way Norwegians relate to their mountain country. It publishes the magazine Fjell og Vidde and a yearbook, and its routes are waymarked with a red T painted on rocks. 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.