Håvass Mountain Hut is both a stop on a network of mountain routes and a pivotal location in the murder investigation. Records link Borgny Stem-Myhre and Adele Vetlesen to the Ustaoset area, and a witness account places a violent-seeming encounter at the hut on the night of November 8. A missing page from its guestbook raises the possibility that the list of people present could also be a list of intended victims.

Setting and Routes

The hut belongs to a chain of larger mountain huts built by the Norwegian Trekking Association for hikers travelling between summits. Four huts on one such route were roughly a day’s walk apart; two beds had been booked at each. Håvass Mountain Hut was the last in the sequence, and lay only half a day’s walk from Ustaoset.

The surrounding terrain gives that route a stark character. During a snowmobile journey, Kaja Solness crosses a vast, smoothed-out expanse where snow and wind have erased the landscape’s contours. The massif of Hallingskarvet rises from it like a threatening wave. When the engine stops, Kaja estimates that they are at least forty-five minutes from civilization, with travel on skis potentially taking several hours. The scene conveys how quickly a mountain journey can leave people beyond easy reach, without establishing that the hut itself was unoccupied.

Travel Records and the Investigation

The hut enters the investigation through converging travel records. Adele Vetlesen, a missing 28-year-old from Drammen, had bought an online train ticket to Ustaoset for November 7. Borgny Stem-Myhre had also bought a ticket to Ustaoset for that date, travelling from Kongsberg. Their journeys connect two women to the same mountain destination, though the ticket records alone do not establish what either did after arriving.

A separate financial record connects Iska Peller to the hut network. Her account was charged on November 20 for two beds at each of four association huts, including Håvass Mountain Hut, where the party had been on November 7. The dates and shared itinerary make the hut a point of overlap in the inquiry, rather than merely a name in a travel record.

The Night of November 8

Elias Skog later told a woman in Stavanger about something he had seen at Håvass Mountain Hut on the night of November 8. Woken by noises outside his bedroom window, he looked out on a moonlit scene beneath the eaves of the toilet hut. Two people stood in shadow: a woman facing him and a man behind her, whose face Elias could not see. The woman appeared to be belly dancing, while the man held a hand over her mouth.

At the time, Elias interpreted the scene as sexual activity and went back to sleep before he could see what happened next. After reading about the murders, he reconsidered: the woman might have been struggling to get free, and the hand over her mouth might have been meant to stop her calling for help. The hut thus becomes the setting for a witness’s delayed recognition, in which an initially misread glimpse acquires a far more sinister meaning.

The Guestbook and Its Missing Page

The investigation raises the possibility that a page missing from the hut’s guestbook contains a list of people who were there that night—and might therefore be a death list. Harry Hole argues that those guests must be warned, even though the investigators do not know who they are. Publicity might alert the potential victims, but it could also tell the killer which lead the police are following.

Mikael Bellman subsequently appeals on television to anyone who was at Håvass Mountain Hut during the night of November 8 to contact the police. Harry Hole responds cautiously to a reporter: the woman found has not yet been identified, the case remains a missing-person investigation for the moment, and questions about a connection to the murders should be directed to the Kriminalamt. The appeal makes the hut’s guest list a public investigative concern, while Harry’s guarded response shows that the identity of the woman and the relationship between the cases remain unresolved.

The hut’s significance deepens as Harry revisits Elias’s account. Tony Leike is initially identified as having raped Adele Vetlesen there, but Harry then recognizes that the encounter was not a rape—and that this distinction is the motive. The revelation changes the meaning of the scene without erasing the witness’s uncertainty: the hut is where an apparent assault, a missing record, and a hidden motive converge, while the decisive truth emerges only later in the investigation.