Winter skiing tracks in the mountains are are staked, with temporary tree branches or poles stuck in the snow or with permanent rods driven into the ground, often marked with red bands.
As branches historically were the first markings used, these on-snow routes are called kvisteruter, literally "branch-marked routes" in Norwegian.
Winter waymarking is done for the principal skiing season at Easter, although some routes are waymarked as early as February. In all, each year, some 7000 km of skiing tracks are waymarked.
Some mountain town ski resorts have their own marking systems for their cross-country trail networks, such as numbers keyed to routes shown on the resort map.
In the forests around Oslo, winter on-snow routes are marked with red painted bands on trees and poles, the principal difference from blue painted bands the rest of the year being that red-marked routes will cross lakes frozen in winter, while blue-marked routes will go around the same lakes.
Important information about Hardangervidda 2026
Several landowners on Hardangervidda have decided to deny DNT the right to mark winter trails with branches and to transport goods across their properties. Four DNT cabins and more than 15 routes on Hardangervidda must remain closed this winter.
In addition, the winter trail network on Hardangervidda will be significantly affected, and many DNT cabins will have very limited access. Read more here.
Through The Norwegian Right to Roam, you can still travel in the area, but you should then be familiar with navigation using map and compass in the winter mountains.
For safety reasons, we recommend that you choose routes that have winter marking. Which routes have winter marking can be found at www.UT.no/kart.
