This time it’s time to feel like Lars Fält, Bear Grylls ore Rüdiger Nehlberg,…

It’s important to know some special survival technics for the winter. You never know if the weather will change fast in the mountains. And than it could be that you can’t see anything, that you can’t go on ore that something else happen. Than you need to to the right things and you need to do it fast. A few years ago, maybe 4, a german family died in that area we want to move in. The weather was bad on that day and they tryed to find a cabin. Later they decided to go back and than they did everything wrong that you can do wrong. All of them died.

In that trip we learned the basic survival technics like:

– building a snow shelter/shelter

– digging snowholes

– groupleading

– card and compass work/orientation

– ski skills

It was the best wintertrip with overnights outside I ever had. I was a bit sad that i don’t had my snowboard with me but it was a great trip. We skied in good conditions and bad conditions, we digged into the snow to be protected from the hard conditions outside and learnd lots of important stuff.

Thanks to Len and Tim for god tur.

Day One:

First days on skiis with heavy backüack that on that tour. Around six km to go and most of the time uphill. It was not easy to handle the backpack and skii without falling. The weather cond. were bad on that day too. It was warm and wet. The wax wasn’t working very well and the snow was really wet.

Specialy on this conditions its really important to pack your sack well. Heavy thing on the bottom and close to your body, light things up ore close to the outside. The best way is to pack everything inside. If it needs put it on the top ore under your sack, but pay attention that things like saws, axe ore shovels are not loose outside. In case of a fall you can hit yourselfe ore other groupmembers with it. If you have a thermos bottle place it close to your body to give some extra protection from the cold outside.

The first night we spend in a big DNT hat. The DNT has lots of cabins in whole norway and everyone can stay there a few nights. But you need to pay for it and for everything in it. Like wood to make fire, food and so on. Its not cheap, but in case of bad weather ore just to have more comfort it is pretty nice. The only thing you can use for free is the toilet.

Day 2 – Snowhole digging:

It was a beautiful and sunny day. We started the day with some nice skiing in the sun on some steep mointains around us. During the way way up, we looked around for some nice “Wechten” ore spots for snowholes. The skiing downhill was very nice and everyone was happy to try some downhill technics. After that fun we started with digging our home for the next two nights.

Snowhole:

It needs around 4-5 hours ore longer to build a good snowhole. Maybe you are faster, but it depends on the snow and the weather, and also on your own skills. I did it before 3 times and so I was really motivated to build a 5 star snowhole with enough space for four guys. That means a kitchen, a space for dressing, and place for our bags. It was really nice to dig in the sun and we started with two persons to dig. We decided to make 2 entraces. One will be closed after digging, but it allows us to dig from two sides and to have more space for everything. When you dig a snowhole you should dig straight into the snow, around 2-3 meters, depends on the kind of snowhole. only wide as your shoulders and high as you are.

The other two guys of us build up some nice windprooft bank where we can make a break during the other guys are digging. When we were deep enough in, we started digging all together. Two mans going into the sides with snowsaws and two guys throw out lose snow with shovels. That was pretty fast work and soon we had a big cozy hole. The important thing is, to make a nice arch in your roof. it should look like the half of a sphere. Than your snowhole is really stabil and you can life there for a longer period. After a last finish our hole was really nice. We had some kitchen hole near to the entrace and much space for our bags cause of the closed second entrace. Our sleeping bench was wide enough for 4 persons and long enough for a sitting bench on the top.

Day 3 – Mountain touring and emergency shelter:

The day starts beautiful, the sun was shining and the snow good. We went out with day packs for a nice tour up a few mountains around us. We learned how to act as a group. Everyone of us tooks the lead for a short time and guides the group to find the easiest way up and down. On the top we found some frozen lakes, and decided to make a breack up there in a siggy. It’s kind of a bivak. In our case for ten persons. Shure it wasn’t confortable in there with ten persons, but still better then sitting outside in the storm. We had some hot drinks and small snacks inside. Then we moved on. On the southside of the mountain we went down. It was steep and really slippy cause of the ice. On that side, the snow was really compressed and it wasn’t easy to find a save way down to the next frozen lake. We tryed some different technics for going down. The landscape around us was awesome but not easy to guide. In the winter everything is white, its not easy to see swamps, lakes ore all the marks of the terain cause everything is covered with snow.

At least we had some senario : Snowstorm, dig into the snow and survive. In 20 minutes we have to dig like hell to build a shelter in the snow. It was hard, wet work, but in the end I had some nice shelter with a deeper cold air trap, and aplace where i can lay down half. Better than nothing, and my entrace was only big enough to crouch in. Easy to close 😀