With the whole class we went to the area around the hut Berdalsbu, where my first self-organized trip led me already. While we skiing to the hut, I had to notice that the pace was completly different to my own ski trips before. That was something I had to get used to and it was quite a task to stay relaxed at the first break after around 2 kilometer. Once we reached the hut, we had a small break and who didn’t use any hut before, got the DNT-system explained by Len. Afterwards we skied around to find good spots for the snow holes on the next day.The best thing was that I got my torch back I forgot one month ago in that hut.

After the first night in the hut, we searched some good areas for our snowholes and then we started digging and sawing blocks out of the slope until we had a quite comfortable snowhole, which was suitable for four people. On that day we had great weather (we were digging topless), so it was great fun digging in the snow. At the end of the day we sat around a campfire and had dinner.

The next morning there was a storm going on and without proper clothing, the whole activity could be quite a pain. I was glad I bought some extra thick mitts before the trip. I had warm hands, while others had deaf fingers and frozen gloves. We had a little ski trip up the hill but because of the harsh wind and poor visibility conditions we turned around and needed a long time down the hill. Again I had problems with the slow pace and I was going on my own up the hill and was waiting there – Len didn’t like it. On the way down I had to lead half off the group down again and the slow pace didn’t upset me anymore.

We used the hut to warm up and had some discussions about group behaviour. After a long time in the snowhole (18 to 10 o`clock the next day) we went out of the area, even if there was another night planned (storm got worse and had to dig us out of the snowhole the next morning)  and had some exersices on the way to navigation in a whiteout and winter survival.

I was learning a lot on this trip: Mostly about myself and my missing patience, building shelters out of snow, navigating in whiteoutes, clothing and using gas stoves in the wind. Great trip but sadly no night in a survival situation because of the wind.