We went to Hovden for our first organised trip. It was supposed to be a skiing trip to improve our technical skills and increase the skiing distance and the weight. Hovden is a place 200km north of Kristiansand and offers beneath a downhill skiing centre 150km ski slopes for back-country. My group members for this trip were the calm Danish girl Ditte, the crazy dude from Australia, Sean, and a fellow countryman, the musician Alex from Ludwigsburg. As it was our first trip we had to organise, it was going to be really interesting.

It was a quick decision that we would go to Hovden, as that area had the most – but still less – snow. Also the question about the length of the trip didn’t took us long. Ditte and Alex were time-wise limited, so we planned three days from Tuesday to Thursday. On meetings we looked out for web pages that show the area, the terrain, parcing spots and further informations. We agreed, that the first day should involve a short distance to get used to the skiing and the area. For the second day we planned a tour to the Tjornbrotbu-hut and the third day should be the return.

I felt excited but very unsure because I hadn’t any experience in trip planing and map reading. Moreover, the group dynamic was different than expected. One person wasn’t really a teamworker and wanted to do their own stuff, one wasn’t included in the whole planning because of sickness and one took over a lot of decisions. So it was not only a skiing, camping and orienteering experience, but also a social one.

We headed off in in the morning and started skiing before lunchtime. The weather was sunny and quite warm, that took us to the first problem: the skiing wax. We stopped a few times before starting properly skiing because people weren’t happy with the gripp and removed the wax and rewaxed several times with different combinations. But it didn’t really help. The skiing conditions were bad and going up the hills were more frustrating than fun, unfortunately. From time to time, some of my group took off the skiis and prefered walking, since it was faster and less exhausting.

Another mistake was, that we hadn’t checked out the current positions properly and communicated too little. We guessed to much and just followed the slopes and everyone had a different opinion on where we were. It was a bit of a mess. And of course we didn’t went the planned route. Anytime we found out that we were on the route for the second day. No problem. We just decided to head further and stay around the hut for the first day. But it was a bigger distance and I got more and more tired. The unfamiliar heavy backpack and some steep sections bothered me a lot. I was very glad that Sean decided to stay at the back with me and helped me to fight against the challenge.

It wasn’t far anymore but it became more and more windy. Furthermore, the marked slope had stopped and we needed to go off-track. The direction was clear but the weather changed even more badly and it was getting dark as well. We have spotted a group of four people in front of us and were sure that that must be another group of us. But it looked like they had problems to find the right way, since they were skiing forward and backward and in a circle and different directions.. We knew that they wanted to reach the hut as well, but they obviously couldn’t. What if we couldn’t find the hut neigher? The other group was on top of a hill, it was even more windy up there and not possible to set up a tent. the ground was very ice and it would neigher be fun to climb up nor to ski down. We sticked together and made a new plan. Due to the weather, the darkness, the steep section in front of us and a spotted cabin not far from us, we decided to ski to that little cabin and use it as a wind shelter. That was one of the best group moments we had. Everyone was involved, looked after the others and made, in my opinion, the best decision we could do in this moment. However, the way to the cabin included some steap icy downhill parts. As a member of another group got already injured due to a fall, we were all a bit worryed that someone could fall badly. We stayed together, went down slowly and reached the hut safely. The idea of the wind sheltered spot was amazing and worked so good, that we could easily built up the tent. The lost group on top of the hill must have watched us and joined us after a while. But the cold and the wind (despite the cabin) was uncomfortable and everyone crawled quickly into the sleepingbags after dinner.

The wind whistled around the tent, but the fixed ropes held it till the morning. And the morning surprised us with a special freedom and a shining sun. It was enormous beautiful! In contrast to the evening, there was no wind in the morning and the sun was just arising between the white mountains around us. Just amazing. Almost everyone started relaxed and happy in the new skiing day. Only Alex didn’t feel good. He had had a disc prolapse years ago but was still struggeling with his back. And the heavy backpack and the night on the sleeping mat wasn’t the best for his back. The plan for the day had actually been to catch up on the rout we have missed the day before and find a new night spot over there. But due to Alex’s back, we decided to find a camping spot closer to the car, that we can leave immediately after the second night, if his back should get worse during the night. But things turned out differently. The skiing included a lot of down sections this day, that Alex challenged a lot. It appeared more and more, that he had pain in his back and that he wouldn’t sleep another night on a mat. So we changed the plans again. We would ski close to the car and go back in the evening to drive home. But we ended up, skiing straight to the car and going home at once. It was a bit sad but there was no point in pushing someone painful through this trip, that could have after effects.

Even though the trip was short, it was a big experience for me to sleep offside in the snow in the tent and ski with a heavy backpack. I learned a lot about making decisions based on current situations and adjusting plans to conditions. Furthermore, I was very happy that we had catched such a beautiful morning moment.