The purpose of this self-organised trip was gain greater experience of travelling over mountainous terrain on skis and also to practice the skills we learnt during the basic ski course in preparation for the mountain safety trip.

For this trip we decided to travel north to Halkilseter Fjellstue and the original plan was to travel by ski to Hovden of the course of 4 days. We chose this route as along its course there were DNT cabins that could be used as emergency shelter and also over night spots. Over the course of the trip the group experienced a few problems. When we arrived on the first day there was much of the day left so the plan was to stay in the cabins that night and then to set off early the next day, however overnight a storm came in which meant the next day we were stuck in the huts as we could not move any wear. This lead to us running out of time to complete what we original set out to do.

The fact that we were not going to be able to complete the expedition we wanted to do was not a problem in its self as there were lots of routes around the centre that we could do over the days that we had left, also we were able to ski on the lake in the bad weather and this gave a great level of experience concerning what is like to ski in them conditions and how it greatly increased the difficulty. Due to the bad weather we made the decision to base ourselves at the centre and do a route around there, this was beneficial as the route we chose had a lot of different terrain and I found this very helpful in helping to practice the skills we learnt during basic ski week in the context that we would be using them.

As we were staying the same place each night we were staying in huts each night, however, we decided on the last night to stay in the tents to experience what it would be like. However we did not follow up on this plan as one member of the group got far too cold towards the end of the day and started to develop frost nip, as we had to get him inside before he got worse we decided to stay in the huts the last night as well.

The main difficulties with this trip was the social and group cohesion. As we were unable to complete the original plan, this led to arguments within the group about what the best course of action should be, and some members of the group were not happy with the outcome due to the fact that they believed the journey could still be completed, however not all members of the group would have been strong enough or competent enough to complete the journey In the smaller time frame. This led to a decrease in social cohesion, as social cohesion is defined by a willingness to cooperate in order to survive and prosper (Stanley, 2003), and some of the members of the group did not appear to be willing to, at first, adapt what we should to achieve as a group, and I believe that this led to some resentment within the group. Furthermore during the day trips there was a lack of team work, as the group was becoming more and more spread over the course of the day due to the fact that the more competent skiers kept speeding off up the front and not waiting and helping those struggling.

Some of the difficulties with team work and cohesion I believe came from the fact that  the team had never worked together before so for the whole of the trip were in the storming stage of group development (Tuckman, 1965), this was evidenced by the difficulties that arose making decisions about the best  course of action concerning adapting the expedition. Also I believe that the lack of experience in this type of terrain and environment nearly led to some poor decisions being made such as attempting to complete the expedition regardless of the weather.

Overall I believe this trip was beneficial, as it provided opportunities to develop my skiing skills further and also leadership/guiding skills through helping other members of the group, however it did highlight how when coming together as a new group that in can be difficult to become an effective team in a short space of time.

References

Stanley, D. (2003). What Do We Know about Social Cohesion: The Research Perspective of the Federal Government’s Social Cohesion Research Network. The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 28(1), pp.5-17.

Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(3), pp.384-399.