Staffed lodges typically serve hearty breakfasts and dinners, and they ll make you a sack lunch. They also offer bed linens, avoiding the need to carry sleeping bags. There are no lodge reservations, and nobody is turned away, which can make for crowded conditions during the high season from June through August. Though DNT membership is not required at the staffed huts, you ll get discounts, and DNT membership is open to all. Some staffed huts also offer guided glacier tours and mountaineering guides.
Unstaffed huts offer a more primitive and typically less crowded option.
Many huts are stocked with food and offer a kitchen where you can prepare a meal with fellow hikers, while others are more bare-bones shelters. Keys are required for unstaffed huts and are available at DNT offices to all DNT members. Our remaining days in Jotunheimen included stops at two more lodges, long days on trails winding past mirror calm lakes, and moments of sheer reverence of the beauty of this place. In its harshest moments, Jotunheimen surprised us with its stunning beauty, including a double rainbow arching over a turquoise lake as a rain squall barreled down on us. Long hours of tranquil dusk light brought a soft glow to the landscape each evening, and daytime walks though vast, open valleys cast a feeling of pure insignificance across all of us as we thread our way through them.