This third assignment is about my second Ski trip in the Hardangervidda. Pictures about the trip can be found in the blog.

The idea of going to the Hardangervidda arose in a chat with Florin and because we were going by car, we could just take another person with us and Tadas joined in. Florin did most of the planning and we split the meals between us: Every evening another had to prepare dinner. The plan consisted of a loop in the southern area of the Hardangervidda with four nights in DNT huts. The plan we made can be found here: Routeplan

Because we were a small group with just the three of us and we knew each other very well, there was very little group development within the four days. There was never any moaning, discussing or having an objection, when chancing the plan. Also the pace at skiing was similar. Somehow it felt like we were together on trips for ages and not on the first common trip.

We started driving from Kristiansand at 7:15 and after having lunch at the parking spot we left with skies around 13:00. Four hours later we arrived at the DNT hut, where we were the only visitors. The route on that that day was really boring, because ¾ of the distance was on an artificial lake and my wax wasn’t working well in the wet snow. The hut was cozy and after dinner we played Swiss card games. On the second day we had our biggest distance to manage and also the most meters in height. We started skiing at 8:20 and the snow was totally icy. Around 1 pm the sun came out and you could ski topless. Until we reached the hut we just saw three snow mobiles the whole day but at the hut stayed around 25 people. In the self-serviced hut were thus all beads occupied but because in Lithlos is also a Serviced hut, which opened the next day, we could use beds there. Just for cooking, we had to stand in a queue. At first I was nerved by all the people, who were mostly German but after I had my food, we had a nice chat. Next day we started at 9 o`clock and had great weather until 12. After that an icy wind came up but we were really fast on that day and arrived one hour later at the next hut. In the hut were some people from the hut before but on the 2 floors were a lot of beds and also two stoves in the kitchen. We decided to change our plans and dismissed the idea of finishing the loop to the first hut again because we were unsure about finding the way off the tracks in these weather conditions. Also we got one day earlier home and didn’t have to ski back over the lake. On the next day we started in windy conditions again but it got better later in the day. The marked track stopped at one time and there were just no poles anymore. While we could watch the solar eclipse clouds came up and visibility was around 50 m. We used the compass a lot and came back to the street. Not where we planned to get out but it was a great downhill part at the end. Florin hitchhiked back to the car and we arrived at the evening back in Kristiansand.

There was just one challenge on the trip and that was the navigating after the poles were gone. Because we just had printed out the map sections of our primary route, we didn’t had a proper map for the last day, what was most likely the reason, why we hit the street approximately 3 kilometers further West than planned.

Our learning outcomes of the trip:

• Always take a proper map of the area. Everyone!
• Without suitable shoes it’s annoying (Blisters, wet feet)
• If there is a high cohesion within the group, you can raise the difficulty of the trip.
• Even snow storms can be fun with the right and trustworthy people.
• Proper planning is essential (Except the missing map everything was great.)