Last weekend I unexpectedly went on a hiking weekend with DNT (the Norwegian Tourist Association). I had tried to sign up for this trip earlier, but it was full. Thursday at 22:30 I got an email saying a place had become available. I decided to take it 🙂 so I left work a bit early on Friday to buy some food and pack my backpack.

We took the bus to Sollihøgda, about 45 minutes outside of Oslo. It was only 2.5 km to the cabin which took about 45 minutes. We hiked at sunset, with very pink skies! At the cabin we met the part of the group who took an earlier bus. We were 28 in total, all between 25-40 years old 🙂

Mustadkroken can only be rented by groups. It has power (but not running water), and it’s the nicest DNT cabin I’ve ever seen on the inside, with proper sofa’s and a nice kitchen – this was designed by a student project some years ago.

We had a nice social dinner, and then went to bed relatively early as we would start a long day of hiking at 08:30 the next morning.

Sunrise on Saturday…

We hiked all Saturday in beautiful sunshine, through fantastic autumn scenery. Partly on small paths, partly on a dirt road until we got to Kleivstua where we stopped for lunch.

From there we started the hike to our destination for the day.

Soon we reached our destination, the viewpoint Kongens Utsikt, or the King’s View. A great view indeed! Time for a group photo 🙂

More photos of the view, before we hiked back the final 12 km to the cabin. I was in the “fast group” going back, just because I was assigned to cook dinner for everyone that evening, with one other girl. Norwegians walking fast = almost running speed for me 😉 so that was quite a challenge, but I sort of managed to keep up with them.

So after 9 hours of hiking (27 km!) I spent 2 hours in the kitchen preparing a taco meal for 28 people. We managed, I was quite proud, but also really exhausted 😀

The next morning was relaxed, we had left over taco’s for breakfast and enjoyed the autumn sunshine.

Around noon we hiked back to our starting point. This time it was light and I took some photos of the autumn landscape 🙂 in both photos below you can see the cabin in the distance.

An old shed with a great view, and hiking through the forest.

Arriving back at Sollihøgda…

What a weekend! I was quite stiff and tired when I made it home on Sunday afternoon, but I was really happy with the weekend. Such a beautiful trip, and a great way to meet a whole bunch of people with the same interests 🙂