I have never been so grateful for heated seats in my life. We had just spent four hours winding our way north from Oslo, through valleys that grew progressively whiter and more determined-looking, when my partner announced with misplaced confidence that she could navigate the final stretch without GPS. Twenty minutes later we were circling what appeared to be the same frozen lake for the third time, our hire car making pathetic crunching noises on the compacted snow. I kept my mouth shut, which is not my natural state, and eventually spotted a sign for Hafjell that she claimed she had been "just about to mention."

March in Oppland is a peculiar creature. Not quite the full drama of deep winter, not yet the thaw of spring. It lurks somewhere between, uncertain of itself, and this in-betweenness defined everything about our arrival. The trees still carried proper snow weight, bending their branches like old men with heavy shopping, but the daylight was stretching noticeably longer than the dead of January. We pulled up to our timber cabin just as this ambiguous afternoon light was doing its best to look golden and accomplished, though it lacked the conviction of true summer.

The cabin sat among similar wooden buildings, all of them smelling faintly of creosote and sensible Norwegian engineering. I had worried it would feel like a holiday park, that slightly desperate atmosphere of enforced jollity, but the seasonal timing saved us. Most visitors come for the ski season proper or the summer hiking; March straddles both without committing, which meant we had space and silence. The snow around our cabin was largely undisturbed, save for the tracks of what I decided was an elk and my partner insisted was a large dog. We did not have the energy to argue properly.

Getting our cases inside involved that particular comedy of winter travel, the one where you realise too late that your footwear has transformed you into a slapstick performer. I went down twice, neither time with dignity, clutching a bag of groceries that contained eggs I had optimistically assumed would survive the journey. They did not. The cabin's entrance became a forensic scene of yolk and self-pity, and I found myself on hands and knees in the snow, scraping at frozen omelette with a car ice scraper while my partner filmed the entire performance for posterity.

Inside, though, the place revealed its seasonal intelligence. The underfloor heating was already working, that subtle warmth that rises through your feet rather than assaulting you from radiators. Large windows faced the slope, and in this March light the view felt provisional, as if winter were still negotiating the terms of its departure. We could see the ski lift in the middle distance, still running, carrying a scattering of late-season enthusiasts who had the slopes almost to themselves. The snow quality would be variable by now, I knew, that spring skiing compromise of morning ice and afternoon slush, but there was something appealing in their persistence, their refusal to let winter go quietly.

I made tea with the emergency supplies we had managed not to destroy and sat by the window as the ambiguous afternoon finally made up its mind and faded into proper evening. The temperature dropped audibly, a physical presence against the glass. My partner joined me, still laughing occasionally at my egg incident, and we watched the outdoor lights come on across the little settlement, warm yellow points against the blue-grey snow.

There is something about arriving in a place during its off-season, when it is not performing for visitors but simply existing. Hafjell in March felt like that. Not the polished winter brochure version, not the green summer promise, but something more honest and slightly awkward, like a good friend caught between outfits. I thought about my certainty in the car, my silent superiority about navigation, and smiled at my own ridiculousness. The eggs were gone, the light was fading, and the heated seats waited for tomorrow's inevitable wrong turn. Some arrivals teach you more than others.