Assignment 4 – Winter Mountaineering

The snow hole trip began in the mountain area east of Setesdal, Bykle and was three days and two nights long. We moved over high and low ground which was mostly covered in pine trees in lower grounds and pine bushes as we moved to higher ground. In the day the temperature was warm with sunny clear days presenting themselves, due to the cloudless night temperatures reached -10 at nights which resulted in snow conditions changing over the course of the day from icy and hard to slushy. Over the course of the three days we set up camp building snowholes that we would sleep in for two nights, built a base camp for our group cooking, had a long day of skiing on the middle day as well as learning some basic winter navigational skills and learning how to build an emergency snow shelter in under 45 minutes. This trip enabled us to gain more skiing experience and improve on the techniques learned in Evje and also teach us about different shelters for an emergency and non – emergency.

When we arrived on the first day to our camp of choice we first tested the hill for any signs of weakness to avalanches. A perfect spot to build a snowhole is a short steep slope. Each group had an avalanche probe to test if there was sufficient amount of snow. The shelters are built in a specific way to keep as much cold air out – this is done by making the entrance as small as possible so the warm air does not escape easily. This can be done by cutting snow bricks with a snow saw, putting branches across the open door and then place pine branches as a barrier or using backpacks to block some of the opening. When digging the snowhole you should build straight into the hill for three metres and you should also be able to stand in there. Once this has been accomplished you can start to build benches on either side where the group can sleep. A corridor needs to be built as it acts as a trench where the dense cold air can sink and then leave the hole. A candle is then placed in the snowhole to keep the group aware if there is a lack of oxygen at any point in the cave. If the candle goes out, there is a severe lack of oxygen.

Langmuir (2013) states that for maximum stability and insulation the walls and ceiling should be at least 60cm thick. This was achieved in our snowhole. We also smoothed off the ceiling a much as possible to stop the wall from dripping through the night. This was made quite difficult as we had managed to dig our snowhole into some tree roots causing us some problems. To resolve this we sawed the roots away and carried on digging. Any holes that were later caused by the roots were filled in and smoothed away and each night we ensured all walls were smoothed down.

One of the learning outcomes was to stay warm and dry throughout the trip. I feel like this was accomplished as when digging the snowhole waterproofs were worn to stay dry and the continuous digging for numerous hours also helped the group stay warm throughout the day. As the mentioned the day was quite warm with clear skies which resulted in cold crisp nights. This presented a challenge to stay warm and in fact found it rather hard to stay warm during the nights. This has given me the understanding of what I should do to improve and to stay warm. One of these factors is to allow myself not to get burnt during the day as this makes you feel colder when there is no sun. there was no way I could have improved the kit I had without spending considerable amounts of money and felt that the lack of energy after skiing all day may have assisted in making me cold during the night and so if I were to repeat this trip I would ensure I ate a high energy diet whilst on the trip and warm myself up before bed by doing a short exercise warm up of some sort.

Regarding the nutrition we had pasta and vegetables with sauce which varied on each evening, however this was cooked on two trangias. This food may have been somewhat high in carbohydrates which is good for releasing energy slowly and keeping the body warm but it lacked in fats, however this was no problem as we had our personal lunch and snacks to make up for it. It can be said that glycogens could ‘last up to 5 – 6 hours.’ Langmuir (2013) so the food we ate as a group was satisfactory but we could have prepared more so by working out our basal metabolic rate and estimating how many calories we would have consumed subsequently picking the right diet for us to live on. It is estimated cross country skiing burns around 500 calories an hour at least and so our dinner could have done with being more calorific, however I feel that the amount of snacks I consumed whilst skiing helped in keeping my energy levels somewhat high.

One of the main challenges working in a winter environment was successfully digging a snowhole and remaining warm. The snow was extremely solid and icy and so digging it consumed a lot of energy. It also resulted in at times a lack of motivation as there seemed to be no progress being made until we finally chipped away through the hard layer. Another challenge was moving around through the snow. A few group members found it particularly challenging skiing and the trip gave an insight into managing a group with varying abilities. Some problems that were encountered were sloping terrain and group leaders failing to recognise novice skiers were struggling to keep up. However these failings have provided all of us with a better understanding of group management and group dynamics.

Other challenges that presented themselves were:

Group tasks – not all members were given a task and so there was a breakdown in communication and the group was not kept together. We learned from these mistakes and decided to have a navigations and back person which would keep the whole group together.

Water – water was an issue as we didn’t have enough for three days and so had to boil the snow. This was something that had to be planned before hand and for some people whose organisation is not a quality skill this was often forgotten till the morning where many were ready and waiting to go.

From facing these challenges it can be said that our learning outcomes were not only practical but theoretical as well, learning about group managements and dynamics from the problems that arose.

Some of the learning outcomes from this trip were navigational and bringing the right kit. We learned how to walk on a bearing in low visibility and also tested how well we could walk in a straight line when our eyes were closed. Needless to say many of us struggled with this but we were able to establish which direction we veered off to when trying to walk in a straight line with no visibility. One of the most important things to bring was a shovel. With this we managed to build an emergency snow shelter under 45 minutes. This was used with our skis and cutting snow bricks with the snow saw which we stacked and leant against the skis. This was an effective shelter that would have kept us out of the elements in case of an emergency and was useful in knowing how to build one as in comparison, the snow hole took considerably longer.

Skiing with a heavy bag was rather challenging as it affected balance, especially going downhill where the bag would pull me backwards and I would fall. I tried to make the bag as light as possible, however I feel that die to the size of a big rucksack balance was going to be affected no matter. After a couple of hours carrying the bag I got used to the different weight distribution however if I fell it was incredibly difficult to get back up and consumed more energy that I would like.