Norge #2 February

Lindesnes Lighthouse trip
28-02-15

I signed up at the last moment to go on this trip of the ESN. I couldn’t sign up earlier because I was skiing at Lillehammer. The bus left at 15:45 from our university to Mandal. We did a small city tour through Mandal. Mandal is a typical coast city in the south coast of Norway (Sørlandet). And has many small white -painted wooden house. It’s raining today with some wind and people are getting cold.

We walk up a hill in Mandal for the view, walk to the cultural building and return to the bus.

We have a quick stop at a beautiful beach between Mandal and Lindesnes. Someone is surfing when we take a look on the beach. It seems very cold to me to be in the water with this temperature. I have respect for the surfer. I’m looking forward to the summer to do some surfing in nice weather.

We continue our trip to Lindesnes. We arrive at the light house at 19:00. We get a tour through the lighthouse museum and to the lighthouse. A man who lives there guide us and tells us a lot about the lighthouse and his history. The lighthouse exist today 100 years. I think the trip would be prettier during daylight, but because it’s dark, raining and a bit foggy the lights of the light house look very nice. We go in the lighthouse and are allowed to take a look at the top of it. The wind up there is strong and the sea is collapsing against the rock cliffs. The lighthouse made me think about the lighthouse at Ameland. I’ve been up there several times but I don’t know anything about his history. Everyone took a look upstairs and we walk back to the museum building.

We get a homemade fish soup with a slice of bread and a cup of coffee. I don’t like fish but the soup taste delicious. I think I’m not allowed to say that I don’t like fish anymore, I’m eating salmon, tuna, shrimps and some other fish since I’m here in Norway.

After the dinner we see two movies about lighthouses, the area and history of Norway. I learn a lot about light houses today and I like the Viking stories. I like how enthusiastic the people who are working here are, they want to tell you everything about the lighthouse and put effort in answering questions.
We take the bus home at 21:40 and will arrive in Kristiansand at 22:40.

Lillehammer ski trip
–          21-02-15/27-02-15

Saturday
–          21-02-15

The alarm goes off at 5:45 in the morning. We take our last shower for this week, boil water for our thermoses and have breakfast. We walk to the train which leaves at 7:53. The train looks very luxurious to me, big soft chairs a lot of space for the legs, a table for your belongings and special closets for ski’s and luggage. We were able to choose our chairs on the internet and sit together on our chosen chair numbers. We arrive in Oslo at 12:25 and we move to the next train. This train is less fancy, still there is a lot of space to move around and they have special storage space for ski’s and luggage. We arrive in Lillehammer at 15:30.

We start with looking for the DNT shop in the city. After asking some people we find the DNT shop. The owner of the shop turns out to be a Dutch men who moved to Norway 9 years ago. The man is exited to help us and give us information about the weather, snow conditions, routes and we buy the map for our trip. He said it would snow with heavy wind on Sunday night, the temperature will drop, the routes are now covered with a layer of ice. We explain our whole trip and he recommended to spend our first night at Krokbua, there is a shelter and wood for a fire.  We thank the man and he wishes us good luck.

We walk out of the city area and are on ski’s at 16:00. We follow the løpe to the hut. Skiing with a backpack is a bit harden then skiing without. I’m a bit afraid to go downhill because it goes so much faster with weight on my back. The weather is nice today, it’s a bit to warm, the ski tracks are like ice. We putted wax on the ski’s, but it’s not working. A women who crosses us speaks to us and tell us there are two elge’s standing on the løpe and if we are quiet we might see them. We continue quiet and after a while I see one between the threes. We take off our backpacks and ski’s and walk to them over the løpe. They walk out of the forest on the lope right in front of us, they are less than 20m away.We are speechless and are impressed by these big animals, I think they are bigger than most horses I’ve seen. They come closer to us and stand still. They look at us and we look at them. They don’t look afraid of us, one starts to eat from the three and walk in the forest again, the other comes closer to us. Something scared him end he kind of run 5 meters away. The way he runs looks very clumsy and we all have to laugh. He walks to us again and keeps staring at us. After taking pictures, laugh and talk about this amazing animal we go back to our stuff, it’s getting dark and cold.

gaphut

We arrive at Krokbua at 18:20. There is a fire place and wood like the man of the DNT told us. Adele makes her first fire in the wild and Miriam give her some help. I heat up my pasta from yesterday on the fire, Adele and Miriam decide to eat it cold. We talk about our first day and are delighted. We sleep tonight in the shelter they call it a ‘gaphut’ in Norway. It’s 20:40 Miriam and Adele are already in their beds. I’m drinking my last cup of tea and go to bed as well.

Sunday
–          22-02-15

I was watching the stars tonight while I tried to sleep. There’s  nothing that makes me more relaxed than watching the stars when I go to sleep. I woke up from Adele and Miriam talking, it turned out that Adele was cold. I came closer to her to sleep at her side to increase heat. In the morning I heard Miriam was also cold during the night. I only had a cold shoulder because I like to sleep on my side and not on my back. The temperature must have dropped to at least -5°C during the night. It took us a long time to cook water, we didn’t sleep with the gas can and now it doesn’t work. We tried to make fire but didn’t work that well, the wood was to wet. After several tries Miriam managed to light the fire. Miriam was a bit frustrated in the morning because things didn’t work out that well (sleeping, gas fire). I added some cold water to the almost warm water and this was for Miriam too much for this morning. We talked about it and I said sorry for adding cold water, next time I will first ask. We talk about our trip today and we agree to stay on the Lope and head to Nordsetter instead of first going to Sjøsætra.

After a rough morning we start skiing at 12:00. We ski over Ingalami løpe to the dam of lake Mesnaga. It was snowing ice this morning, now the sun is shining. We used the blue/purple wax today. Unfortunately the wax is working to well for me, I have troubles with gliding and going downhill. Because most of the route is uphill I’m glad the wax is a bit too much, I can walk uphill without bone haring or zigzagging. I taped my heels to prevent blisters, but it starts to hurt. We are almost at our camping spot so I leave it like this for now. On the last part of the route I fall down twice. The first doesn’t hurt that much, I fell on my butt, but I can’t stand up and glide down the path. The next fall is less comfortable I fall forwards and the backpack makes me fall with my forehead on the track. I take off my ski’s and walk the downhill part. The falling part makes me a bit insecure about my skiing skills for this trip. We arrive on a beautiful open area and the sun is making the landscape looking like a fairy-tale.

It’s nearly 16:00 and we decide to put up our tent after we crossed the open area. In the open area is a river and we check if the water is reachable. It takes less time to cook the cold water than melting snow. Unfortunately the river is total frozen and covered with snow. We walk between the threes and search for some threes who cover enough shelter for the wind tonight (According to the man this will be the windy and snowy night). We dig out a big hole in the snow to put up our tent. We dig the hole as extra shelter and heath reflection. After putting up the tent we make up our beds and I cook in the door opening of the tent. First I have to find out how the cooker works, Miriam gives me some instructions and I manage to cook. Adele and Miriam are complaining and say they don’t understand how people can have fun by camping in winter. I think it’s fun and it’s a challenge for myself and the landscape looks so pretty covered with snow. This is how I think about it at the moment and we’ve only had good weather, so I might not be too optimistic. We eat Lentils with carrot and potato. It taste delicious even though the potato had to cook longer. Before sleeping Adele and Miriam go out for a run to get warm. I’m warm, I’m wearing all my clothes except my woollen long underwear-trouser. Only my feet are cold and wet. I take care of my feet and put dry socks on. I put the shoes in a plastic bag and drop them in my sleeping bag. Miriam and Adele are already trying to sleep, I’m writing my traveldiary. It’s 20:30 now and I will also try to sleep.

Monday
–          23-02-15

I couldn’t sleep so well because my feet where cold, this came because of the ice cold and wet shoes in my sleeping bag. I put on my woollen long underwear during the night and putted my fleece around my feet. I woke up at 4:30 because of the wind and snow, hitting the tent. I fall asleep again and wake up at 8:00, we go out of bed at 9:00. We make breakfast with our last reserves of water. This night we slept with a gas can in our sleeping bag. I tape my heels again and we pack our gear. It’s snowing and its windy. We start skiing at 11:00. We arrive in Nordsetter at 12:20 and take a break in a café. We give the carrots and potato’s away to someone who’s working at the café. We drink hot chocolate with bread. For me a healthy sandwich for the girls a cinamonroll. We write our diary’s, dry our clothes and fresh up a bit at the toilet. We fill our bottles and canteens with hot water. We discuss our trip and decide to buy wood for the hut at the top of the Nevelfjell. We can’t buy a few pieces so we have a big bag of wood. We all put 3 pieces of wood in our bags. It turns out that I do have blisters on my heels. The prevention didn’t work the shoes are a bit too big. I buy kotex to put on my heels, this makes my foot fit better in the shoe and makes a nice bandage on the blisters. The boy of the café didn’t had trust in us and said we would come back after a few hours.

We leave the café at 14:00 to the top of the Nevelfjell. It’s still snowing and it’s windy. We follow the løpe and use our compass to cross the country up to the top. We zigzag to go uphill. We are above the timber line now and there is a heavy wind up here. Its foggy and a bit snowing. It’s hard to ski here, between the soft snow is ice, on the ice we have no adhesion and glide away very easy. One of Adeles ski’s came loose and is gliding down, luckily it’s heding to a small three and stops 5 meters below her, Miriam was near it and brought it to her.  Miriam want to follow the old skitracks of other skiers I follow the compass. Talking to each other is almost impossible and we have to stay close to each other. We cannot see more than 5 meters ahead. The ski tracks go everywhere and Miriam is okey with following the compass. We go uphill a bit more and I see the hut.

Nevelfjell hut

Found it! We are so happy, we are totally covered with a layer of ice and we all started to get a bit cold, so it was time to find the hut, otherwise we had to go down. We shovel the snow away from the door and settle down in the hut. The hut has three benches and a small oven. There is no wood in the hut, so it was a good decision to bring wood up here. We try to light the fire, I’m the one who finds out how the stove works, air flow is from the top, the flames start to grow by closing the door. After being in the hut for a while Adele tells she’s still cold and I’m a bit worried. We do a dance in the middle of the hut together to get warm. Adele’s sleepingbag is wet, not just wet from damp but really wet. Luckily we can dry it in front of the stove. We eat curry rice made with coconut milk and broccoli tonight and it smells really good. we have a delicious meal and have enough for a second dish. We hanged out all our wet stuff in front of the stove and it makes the hut very cosy. Adele brought a candle with her what makes the atmosphere even more cosy. We called the red cross to ask if they bring wood up here tomorrow, the man tells me that he don’t know and doesn’t think so. This means we only have enough wood for one day up here and might have to go back tomorrow. We read in an article that the hut is provided with wood, unluckily not today. We drink tea of melted snow and we all are in a good mood. We go to bed, no idea what time it was.

Tuesday
–          24-02-15

We all had a good night of sleep and we wake up at 8:00. I eat the leftovers of the rice of yesterday for breakfast. It’s still windy and very foggy outside. Which makes sense because Nevelfjell means foggy mountain. We decide to change our plans. Miriam don’t want to sleep in a tent for two nights so we decide to stay in the hut today, and have a day off. We will go to Nordsetter tomorrow, take a break at the café and ski to Lillehammer in two days, sleep one night in the tent and if possible sleep at Krokbua again. We call the café to tell that we will not pick up the wood today and they don’t have to worry about us. Our stay is comfortable, we melt snow, drink tea and hot chocolate, sleep most of the day.  We cook dinner in the evening and burn our last pieces of wood. We have couscous with carrot and potato today.  I watched the clock at 21:00 for the last time and fall asleep.

Wednesday
–          25-04-15

We wake up round 8:00 and prepare to continue our trip. We have breakfast and leave the hut at 9:00. Weather conditions are a bit better today, still foggy and windy, but less. We wear our goggles today. We go down carefully. We set our compasses on 90°. The course we take is between two walking paths and it doesn’t matter if we go more to the right or the left because we will end up at the løpe. We are between the threes again and the snow is like powder. Falling isn’t scary here, when you fall you fall in the soft snow. We have fun by going downhill. We see the markers of the walking path at the left side of us. Before we know we hit the løpe. This was quicker than expected. It took us one hour to go down to the løpe. We are all skiing with a big smile on our face. A man ask us in Norwegian if we slept in a tent and we answer ‘Ja!’ He respond “So bra!”.  We arrive at the café at 10:45. The boy who had no trust in us called us hardcore survivors. We fill up our bottles and leave the café at 12:00.

The route is downhill, but not too steep. We scrape the wax off our ski’s because its only downhill. We have fun and talk about our experience. We take a view brakes to take of clothes, to drink, to pee, and to eat. During one of our breaks Miriam loses a ski and it’s going down the løpe. We can’t stop laughing. A passenger pics the ski up and brings it to us. We arrive at the Lillehammer skistadium at 15:30. There are so many routes around it, and probably not all of them are on our map and we take the wrong løpe and end up in the middle of the stadium. People help us with finding the right løpe and we make it to Krokbua. We arrive at 16:30 and start building fire and put up the tent next to the DNT hut. The wood is still wet and it takes a lot of energy to keep the fire going but we manage to make a nice fire on the fire place. I collected some oldmans beard from the threes and dried it to use as tinder, this stuff is working better than tampons. We have our last evening meal tonight. We cook it next to the fire. We have smashed potato with dried onion. It taste delicious but doesn’t fill so well. We dry all our stuff around the fire and enjoy our last night outdoors. It turns out that Miriam is the only one with good shoes, they fit well and het feet are dry. We go to bed at 20:30.

Thursday
–          26-02-15

We had a good night in the tent. We woke up at 8:30, packed all our stuff, made fire, had breakfast. We leave Krokbua at 10:00. We take the løpe back to the Lillehammer stadium. The tracks here are very steep with sharp turns. I don’t really like the route. Miriam and Adele want to visit the skijump and I follow them. Finding the right route is a hard job here, we are in the stadium and see people train for the biathlon. We ski on their practice tracks and they pass us by. I don’t really feel comfortable here. Some of the steep hills I take of my ski’s and walk. Adele and Miriam have no problems with the hills and turns. We arrive at the skijump at 11:00. We take a look at it, but it’s closed. We have a nice view over Lillehammer from this place. We go back to the stadium and take the løpe to Lillehammer. The whole route is steep downhill with sharp edges and I don’t feel confident enough about my ski skills to go down. After a few tries and falling over I take off my ski’s and start walking. It’s below zero today and everything is melting. We arrive at the border of the city and take off our ski’s. We go to the DNT to ask if we can drop our backpacks and ski’s there. The man is very friendly and makes a spot for our gear. He asks us about our trip and we tell and thank him for the information on the first day. We walk through the city and do some shopping. We end up in a small bakery. I order a hot chocolate and Miriam and Adele buy coffee with a cinamonroll. We leave the bakery at 17:30, pick up our backpacks and ski’s and decide to eat pizza at a restaurant for a good deal. We stay there till it’s time to go take the train. The train leaves at 19:30. We have to wait one hour in Oslo and take the next train to Kristiansand. It’s a night train and has sleeping cabins and a restaurant. We get a blanket and blow up pillow for the night. I sit next to a Norwegian man, I hope he doesn’t smell me to much after being a week in wilderness. We arrive in Kristiansand at 3:40.

Short evaluation

I learned a lot from this trip. It was hard enough to challenge us, but we had options enough to do it safe and keep it fun. We all had moments in which we weren’t comfortable with being in nature, but at the end we all were happy about doing this trip. I also learned a lot from the girls. It’s different to be on a trip with girls than with boys. I felt more responsible and involved for everything, and we discussed all our plans together.

What I will change next time:
–          Always sleep with your gas bottle
–          Always sleep with your thermos
–          Always sleep with your shoes, and cover them with a            fabric so your feet don’t get cold
–          Bring a lighter
–          No need for icetea, cold drinks don’t work
–          No time for soup during break
–          Bring more breakfast
–          Something else for lunch
–          Only taping heels doesn’t work when the shoes are to big.

Preparation Lillehammer ski trip
–          20-02-15

 
We have to organise our own ski trip. I will do a ski trip together with Miriam and Adele. We planned to go to Lillehammer for 6days with 5 overnights.

The plan:

Options:
–          Follow the løpe instead of cross country
–          skip the trip around the lake to have one day more to go back Lillehammer
–          skip the snowhole stay in the hut

Route:

In my backpack

Total 16,5K  5k = food

Common gear
–              inner tent
–              tent poles
–              2 snow pegs
–              2 gas cans
–              Stove adaptor (without pans)
–              ski wax

Sleepgear
–              inflatable mat
–              Thin insulation mat
–              sleeping bag
–              inlay
–              bivauoc bag

Clothes
–              2 pair socks
–              woolen longunderwear
–              woolen t-shirt
–              outdoor trousers
–              fleece
–              waterproof jacket/trouser
–              gloves
–              thin gloves
–              mits
–              ski boots
–              2 buff
–              gaiters
–              down jacket

Gear
–              Backpack 55L
–              2 Dry bags
–              rain cover
–              Plastic bags
–              notebook + pencil
–              fire steel
–              knife
–              compass
–              map + mapcase
–              rope
–              snow shovel
–              snow saw
–              headlight + spare battery
–              mobile
–              avalanche stick
–              shovel
–              ski’s,  skipoles
–              goggles, sunglasses
–              thermos
–              spoon
–              mat to sit on
–              ID, insurance, bankcard

hygiene and health
–              first-aid-kit
–              rescue blanket
–              sports tape
–              toothbrush + paste
–              sun cream
–              Vaseline

Food
–              Dinner: 6 Carrots, 3 potatoes, smashed potato, pasta precooked meal, dried onions, lentils 1k, couscous, tomato soup, honey
–              Breakfast: oatmeal with milkpowder
–              Lunch: mixnuts, 6 muesli bars, 2 orange, kiwi, 3 soup, chocolate bar with rains and nuts.
–              Drinks: tea, chocolate powder, ice tea powder

Friday
–          20-02-15
 
We gather together at Miriam’s place. 16:00 packed my stuff walk to Miriam’s place. We go to the supermarket to buy evening meals. We have our dinner every night together, the other meals we prepare on our own. We have dinner together and eat pasta. The leftovers are the meals for tomorrow evening. We pack and unpack our gear, discussed what to bring, what not. Divide the common gear on a way all the backpacks are around the same weight. We have a lot of fun during our preparation. We sleep at Miriam’s place because we have to take the train early in the morning.

Daytrip with Norwegians 3
–          07-02-15

It’s a rainy and windy day, and it stays raining the whole day. We have our third trip with the Norwegian students and go to Jegerberg for a race. We are divided in 4 groups, the Norwegian and international students are equal divided. The goal of the race is to find messages with tasks on certain points at Jegersberg. We use the numbers on the map and compass to find the tasks. The Norwegian students put the tasks here before the race. We run to the task fulfil what’s on the paper and run back to the start point.  The papers contain tasks like there has to be someone in the group that’s walking on one leg, a list with questions to answer and walk to another point. Our group is very fast, most of the routes we are running. Running is nice because the rain and wind makes it cold when you stand still. After less than 3 hours our team made it first.  We hear that one team has given up and went home. Two groups are heading for their last task. I wait with the Norwegian’s who are gardening our bags and the start point.  After one hour everybody is back at the start point. We receive a price as winners and I share the price (chocolate) with the people who are still there. This is the end of the trip and we head back home.

The weather was maybe too bad for a lot of the students, and not only the internationals had troubles with the weather, also some Norwegians were complaining about wet clothes and being cold. The stones became very slippery because of the rain and I think running on them wasn’t the smartest thing to do. There were no accidents, but a plan B might been a nice thing to have.

Ski-week  Evje
02-02-15 / 06-02-15

Our first trip with our friluftsliv class is the skiweek in Evje at Troll active. Troll active is an modern outdoor education centre with all the necessary facilities for guests to sleep, eat, play and challenge the nature of the lower Setesdal valley. The main activity of Trollactive is rafting and kayaking because of the location next to the river Otra. But in the winter skiing is the main activity.

Monday
02-02-15

We gather around in the morning in front of St.Olavsvei to drop all the stuff in Len’s van. We drive to Evje with three cars and Len’s van. Some people had to take the bus, we meet up with them in Evje. I’m in the van with Len and Florin. Len tells us about the environment and the mountain bike trip we will do from Evje to Kristiansand.

We arrive at Trollactive and unload the cars. We have some free time to settle in our accommodations. We have two apartments for 6people and a big one for 12people. I stay at the 12 person house. We have a girls room, I sleep in a room with Adele, Sharon, Jais, Anne and Katja.

We meet in the common room and got introduced to Tim. He’s the owner of Trollactive and will lead our ski trip together with Len. We got some house rules, the program and after the introduction we start our first ski experience in Evje. We split up in two groups one group will go with Len the other with Tim. Before every ski activity we have to wax our ski’s. not the most fun activity to do, but has to be done.

We do some basic exercises on a flat ground and have a lot of fun jumping around on the ski’s. Tim is an awesome teacher, he has a positive vibe and brings this over on the group. He has humour and is really in to learning all our names. We do some more practice by skiing in a circle and got some tips to improve our skills. We do a small race against each other with and without ski poles. We have the most perfect weather conditions, fresh powder snow, sunshine, and temperatures are below zero. We practice our up and downhill skills and after playing around in the area we go on a small tour on the hill next to the camp. After the skiing lesson today I have the feeling I will get the hang of it.

Back at our cabins we start cooking. We made cook groups and I’m cooking together with the girls. On today’s menu is pasta with tuna. I always thought that I didn’t like tune but the dish is delicious. After dinner we have a lecture in the common room about waxing ski’s. the lecture exist off showing promotion movies of the swix brand and they are not very interesting but the questions of the group make the lecture instructive. After the lecture everyone is exhausted. we play a card game and go to bed after two rounds.

Tuesday
03-02-15

Today we go on our first ski tour. We drive with two busses to the location. We split up in two groups and I’m in the group with Len. We start on the løpe and do some ski exercises, to be honest this is a bit boring, skiing in circles on the same spot. We continue the trip and go in the fresh snow next to the løpe. Again we have the best weather conditions, its freezing, the sun is shining and there is no wind. We take a lunch break, we don’t have small breaks in between so it’s time to drink and eat something. After the break we practice our downhill ski skills and have to do some exersizes like stepping aside, go down on one foot. I’don’t like these exercises, we have one time to try and then we have the next exercise, there is no time to do an exercise twice and I feel like I will never learn this stuff. We continue our tour and during the skiing Len is telling about the animals and tracks we see. I’m interested in this stuff and like to learn about the nature of Norway. We’re back to early at the busses and Len decide to do some extra practice at the ski slope. We have to leave our backpacks behind so I put on an extra layer of clothes. While I’m doing this the group leaves. I’m behind with Osvaldas and we start looking for the group. We found them practicing on a very steep hill. No idea how they got down and up there so fast and I’m struggling with Osvaldas to go downhill. We reach the group, they are practicing something they call tele mark turn. I feel a bit sad that they left without waiting on us or telling where to go and ask someone why. They say they thought we had a break. Len says he doesn’t want to teach me anymore today. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information. I ask some other students to teach me and Anna manage it to give the instructions I needed to understand this tele mark thing. We return to the busses, the other group arrives and we head back to Troll active.

We put our ski’s away and start cooking. Tonight we eat fish sticks with potato and vegetables. We have a lecture about winter first aid. It’s about dehydration, hypothermia and things like that, how to prevent, notice and threat. After the lecture we sit together with everyone in our accommodation and play card games and Tadas and I play some guitar.

Wednesday  
04-02-15

Again we have a beautiful day, its cold, the sun is shining and there are no clouds in the sky. We drive up hill and will make a tour to the top of the mountain today. I’m in the group with Tim. We make a beautiful tour today. We cross a lake and we listen to the silence of nature. Everyone is enjoining the tour. The landscape looks like a postcard. We are in winterwonderland.

I notice that my heels hurt from the shoes, they are a bit to big so I put some tape over my hills to prevent blisters. On the trip with Tim we have a lot of small breaks what makes the trip comfortable. He’s taking care of the wellbeing off everyone, he’s asking if everyone is feeling oke and makes stops to drink, and to take clothes on and off. We practice our downhill skills on a hill that ends up to the lake. He’s giving us some tips and tricks to improve our skills and we have time to practice on ourselves.

After the practice we continue our tour to the top of the mountain. The first part is very steep and we have to do side steps to walk up. We learn that with cross country you want to avoid to do bone herring because it takes a lot of energy. The options are zigzagging uphill or do side steps if necessary. We arrive the mountain top. On top of it is a big round building what looks like a ball. This is a send tower for the planes. The other group is already settled on top of the mountain and we join them. We have a nice spot in the sun and have lunch break. We go downhill in two separate groups and return to the busses. It turns out that the other group ended up somewhere else and Tim is going to pick them up.

We arrive at the camp and start cooking, tonight we eat rice with tuna. And again I like the dish. We have no lecture tonight. Instead of a lecture we can choose to go on an evening walk on snow shoes. Not everyone is joining but I look forward to try this. We gather outside and someone of Trollactive is guiding us. The snowshoes are very light and smaller than I expected them to be. It’s easy walking on these in the snow and because of the hooks we can walk quite steep uphill. We got a navigate task, and experience how hard it is to navigate in the dark. We walk over the hill and have a beautiful view over the landscape with the stars and moon bright shining in the sky.

Thursday
05-02-15

Today we drive to the other side of the Otra. Tim is showing us where we are going from the parking place of Trollactive. The place we are going was one a ski resort and closed down a few year ago. The only leftover we see from it is the road and a cabin. We walk uphill together. We have to carry our ski’s because it’s too steep. I walk in a nice tempo and when I feel warm I take of a layer of clothes. Some people are passing me by and ask if I’m okey. I am but I don’t think they will be when they arrive on the top. I enjoy the view over the valley and the other side of the road is covered with ice. We take a break at the lake and it turns out that the people who were passing me by sweat a lot and are getting cold. Now I know for sure that my shoes are too big. During the walk my heels hurt and I tape them to prevent blisters. I’m in the group with Len today and Tim’s group leaves the lake before us. We ski more uphill and Len want us to navigate. Luke takes the navigate part and we follow. It turns out that the route he want to take is to steep and we ski back a bit and follow the løpe. Today is the first day with clouds and it makes the wind chill colder than the other days. We go uphill again and see the other group also heading to the mountain top. It’s windy today so we don’t stay long on the top. We go downhill in one big group. We make a nice group picture and continue the tour downhill. The area we go down is steep and I do a lot of zigzagging to go down. We arrive at a point we have to cross a river and now it feels like real cross country. We see the first elge tracks. We have to take off our ski’s to cross some threes and a water stream. I have an interesting conversation about point of views. One of the students it taking another track than the others and Sven considered him irresponsible for the group and that he putts  the group in danger, in case something happens to him. At the other hand I think he’s exploring his own boundary’s and knows where he’s capable of (he’s one of the experienced skiers in our group) and I think it’s good that he is not following the group like a sheep.  Some people are very exhausted by the trip and are falling down a lot. I fall down a few times but do more zigzags tan most of the people and I don’t feel that exhausted yet. We end at an artist house and the man is talking with the students who are already there. We follow the last part on the løpe and someone of trollactive picks us up with the bus.

We arrive and start cooking immediately because we thought we didn’t had an lecture today so we had on our planning to make pizza. We eat half of the pizza and eat the other part after the lecture. Adele and Florine give a lecture about winterpacking. What to bring how to pack and what not to bring. It’s a good lecture with a lot of interaction with the group. After the lecture we watch a movie in the common room. It’s a long film and I decide not to watch the end and go to bed at 12.

Friday
06-02-15

Our last ski day. We wake up earlier to clean the houses. This give us more time to go skiing today so we don’t have to clean after. We could choose today if we want to do a tour with Tim or more practice lessons with Len. I choose for a day of practise. We go to the area we were the first day and take the exactly same track for practising. We learn more about skating on ski’s and breaking by going downhill. At the end we do a race to reach Tim’s group. Almost I was the first, but Luke cached up with me by taking the løpe. We ski back to the busses in one big group. We have a last meeting in the common room, say bye to Tim and drive back home.

Odderøya
01-02-15

Almost every Sunday we go to Odderøya to enjoy the nature, fresh air and buy waffles at the waffle house at the south point of the island.

Today is a beautiful day. It’s cold but the sun is shining and no wind at all. We are with a big group of our friluftsliv class and have a lot of fun during our walk there. We talk a lot during the walk, and it feels great to be part of this group.

We walk on the island round three o’clock. We go there at this time because at the end of the day you can get the waffle left overs at the waffle house. The sun is going down between four and five and covers the island with a beautiful red glow. We walk down the rocks and enjoy the last sunshine of the day. Some of our group use this moment to make awesome pictures.