This self-organised trip myself and Connor decided to base ourselves around Kristiansand and to do 3 days activity around here. We planned to do 2 days of climbing and a day of swimming in the lakes.

The first day we decided to try an area we had not climbed before so headed to Banahaia, when we got there, there was limited bolted roots that we could find, this meant we had to rig a top rope system so as to be able to climb. When doing this we purposefully used the method that we were taught on the mountain fjord trip so as to be able to practice this. We found that the climbs around Banaheia were very challenging so we did not manage to complete that many.

The second we decided to go to Storheia to be able to complete more climbs and practice sport climbing and threading the rope at the top of climb. This was good as we were able to do a large amount of climbing and I managed to do my first lead on rock as up to this point I had only led indoors.

Both of these days we took another person who is not on our course, this was good as it gave us a chance to work with a novice and be able to teach them all the basics. This was also beneficial as we were able to coach them on their technique, this was good for both us and them as we were able to gain some experience in coaching and they were able to complete a climb they were unable to do at the start of the day.

As there was only 2 or 3 of us it was difficult to see ant group dynamics working, however there was a large amount of communication happening this was both on and off the wall, also the fact that there was only 3 of us climbing, this meant that we were able to complete a lot of climbs.

The third day we went swimming in the lakes at Banaheia, this was more of a fun thing but what surprised me was the few amount of people in the water as it was quite busy around the lake as it was a warm day but there were few people in the water. Another thing that I took away from this day and the course in general is how easy it is to access areas such as this.   

This was a fun 3 days and although not much in the way of group development was experienced I still felt it was very beneficial due to the fact that I was able to increase my climbing capability and also to get the chance to do a sport climb outdoors, further more it was good to be able to get some caching experience during these couple of days.