After my exhausting journey in the easter holidays with Martin and Line, the next trip on our list was the mountain safety trip. Very tired, but with pleasant anticipation, I arrived on tuesday noon in Berdalen where I met the rest of the course. The weather looked quite shabby all around us, but somehow, except for some short snowing, we stayed dry on our way to Berdalsbu. Always one individual of the group was confronted with the task to lead the rest of us to a given point on the map. The whole way we had to travel the first day was about six kilometers in slightly ascending terrain. Because of the red dots on the trees that mark the way to the DNT huts and that the path went up in a valley all the time made it relatively easy to navigate. The wet snow and the resulting bad grip of the skis without clister was for a few people a much bigger difficulty. But after approximately three hours of skiing with a few breaks for adjusting clothes and eating, we arrived at Berdalsbu. Since it was already late afternoon, Len and Tim decided to stay the first night in the hut because we had not have enough time to finish our snowholes before it got dark. The hut was very nice, so we spent the night in the hut, played some games and prepared ourselfs for the next day.

The weather on wednesday morning was just penomenal. We skied around in the area to search for some suitable spots for digging snowholes. While we did that, we talked about the most important things like the steepness of the slope and how to check the snowdepth with our probes. At every spot we found, we had a group discussion about pros and cons for building a snowhole there. As everyone was happy with the cornices we decided to dig, we skied a little bit for fun, practiced our technique and jumped over some cornices.

Back at the hut we grabbed our stuff and Max, Jonas and I skied to the slope we wanted to start digging. We checked the depth of the snow one more time and marked the shape of our entrance.

Because of the sunny and warm weather, we swapped the guy who was digging every 30 minutes. While one was digging and sawing the snowhole, the other two of us had plenty of time to relax, to build a bench and a table and three sunbeds. Fortunately, after we dug the entrance, Len came by and gave us some very helpful advices how to cut big ad stable blocks out of the snow with a triangular shape. This simple advice made the work in the snowhole way easier and more efficient. As we finished most of our snowhole and the snow at the entrance got too soft from the sun to put the blocks on top of it, we decided to take a longer break to have some food and lay down in the sun.

Unfortunately we recognized that the anticipated cold did not come until it gets dark, so we improvised a little bit while closing our entrance. Before we put all our equipment inside, we gave the snowhole some finishing touch from the inside. We covered the sleeping are with a big tarp, our bivouac sacks and our sleeping mats on top. For the backpacks we had have build a seperate storing nice on the left side of the snowhole. I felt very comfortable in the snowhole and was looking forward to sleep in there. While we cooked our dinner we noticed that the gas burns so much slower in cold tempertures than in summer. Stupidly we first remembered at the last night that we could have warmed it up by putting it in our hands while cooking…

Therefor our campfire in the night was just perfectly warming and very huge.

The night was quiet and very restful. The next morning was everything else that restful… Everything took way more time than we had expected. Altough we woke up at 7.30, we did not manage punctual at the hu tat 9.30. As if that would not have been bad enough, I had to run back to our snowhole to grab the snowshovels and probes.

Back at the hut, we came together in our group and planned the tour for the day. Like on the first day, every member of the group had to lead the rest of us to a given spot on the map.

I took the first lead and headed northwest zigzagging up a valley to a tiny lake. After the first stage, the others also led some hundred meters each. We all had some problems with the navigation, especially with the estimated time, some more and some less…. The wind was blowing so strong that even with the sun it got quite cold as we got higher. The slow pace with breaks every 50 meters and the cold wind spoiled my enjoyment of this tour a little bit. But the exercises where we blindfolded ourselfs to simulate a whiteout and tried to walk straight was much fun. I did not walk roughly straight.

After a lunchbreak in our snowholes, we went out again to learn how to build an emergency shelter.

Len showed us how to do it and we started digging a trench and covered it with blocks of snow by the help of our skis. Now we just needed a rabbit hole at the head end of our shelter to crawl into it. In just 45 minutes my emergency shelter was ready to spend a night in and save your life.

At dinner i noticed once more how much food I need if I spend a whole day outside in the mountains.

On friday we slpit up the groups homogeneously and my group skied a longer tour back to the cars. Heading northwest from the hut, we went up on the next mountain, where we took a short break. Equal to the other days, we continuously swapped the leader. Without blaming anyone, especially one time the leader was totally wrong as he said we have to go to the west and went straight to the north… But in the end we made it to the parking lot without completely loosing the way at the same time as the second group. On the way there we stopped at a small cornice where we once more had the chance to practice building a emergency shelter in 30 minutes. Mine was not that comfy but definitely fulfilled it’s purpose.

Even if the skiing in this trip was not that exciting for me on that trip, I enjoyed it to be in the snowy mountains again. Sleeping in a snowhole was a completely new experience for me and I was surprised that it is that comfortableand dry in there. It was way better that sleeping in a tent! I would say that everything worked out very well on that trip, even if a few of us had big problems with the navigation.Of course the weather was had a huge impact on my mood and that I enjoyed the trip very much. I also loved the hilly landscape around our snowhole directly at the treeline.

One thing i will surely never forget is the view out of our snowhole when I cut the entrance from the inside and pushed it out.