In the last week of april, after our self-organised trip to Tangvall, it was our turn to go on the mountain to fjord trip at Byglandsfjorden. We started the trip in Bygland, where we went on the lake with our canoes and had one overnight on a small island before we paddled to Trollaktiv the next day. One day later we jumped on our bikes and cycled the whole way back to Kristiansand.

As we arrived in Bygland around noon, we had a short briefing about how to load a canoe properly and some dry training for the basic canoeing techniques before we practiced the different techniques on the water. Adam taught us different strokes, like the J-stroke, backstroke, drawstroke, pushaway stroke and the sweep. The weather looked very changeable, but until this point there had not been any rain yet. After one hour of practicing, we started our planned route and always one boat assumed the lead. As I had guessed before, the navigation on the lake was not very difficult, but after the first few hundered meters, I started to recognize that we had to paddle very slowly to stay together as a group. My fingers became cold after a while and my whole body started to freeze because of the slow pace and the low temperatures around 2 to 4 degrees… But that not being enough, it suddenly started to snow some huge flakes. This was definitely one of the craziest experiences I have ever had – canoeing while it was snowing. Maybe it does not sound like fun, but it is!

In the afternoon, after having paddled for 3 hours, we went ashore on the small island called Storøyi. We pulled the canoes out of the water and went around the whole island as a group to look for some nice spots to build our shelters. The place where Stella and Saedis had built their shelter the week before was immediately eye-catching for Line, Jonas and me.  Hence, we grabbed our gear, walked back to this place and started to plan our shelter. The girls had been building a natural shelter out of logs, sticks and moss. Because the construction seemed unstable and too small for us, we took down the whole shelter, chopped down two dead trees and rebuild a new one. Some of the big branches the girls had been using for their shelter were really good, so we decided to use them for our shelter as well. We laied two of our tarps on top of the construction of logs and branches to protect ourselves from the rain and put loads of moss on top of it. After 1,5 hours of moving tons of logs, branches and especially moss, our shelter was finished and looked very comfortable. Before going to sleep, we walked around to see where the rest of the group were sleeping. We definitely had the biggest and most comfortable shelter, particularly for the prevailing weather conditions. The weatherforecast had shown that there would be no snow/rain from 4 pm on, but it would prove totally wrong.

The next morning we woke up after a cozy night and everything was a little bit snowed in, what lookes really nice. We had breakfast in our shelter, packed all our equipment, loaded the canoes and started our second stage in good weather conditions. Jonas and I led the first part where we had to cross the lake to get close to the shore. Fortunately, with almost no wind and even a little bit of sunshine it was not a big deal. We tried to stay close to the shore all the time. But like on the day before, some of us, especially one of the boats, always paddled 30 meters further away from the shore as the rest of the group. But generally we stayed closely together and when the weather turned and it got more windy even closer. Before we arrived at the point where the lake ended and the river started, we had to fight against small waves and storm. Luckily no one capsized, even if two boats hit a rock – on a lake. The last part on the river before we went on shore and walked back to Trollaktiv was very easy and relaxed paddling.

At Trollaktiv we had the rest of the day off, so we sat together for a while and celebrated Adam’s birthday and afterwards Jonas and I cycled around at the trails and the pumptrack next to the camp.

In the evening Jonas, Mike and I went to the climbing tower for some routes what was much fun, but my fingers were freezing like hell again.

On wednesday morning, we made the final decision to cycle the whole way on one day because of the bad weatherforecast for thursday. We started at 9:30 and cycled with a pleasant pace to Evje, where we had our first break to eat some cake in the local bakery. On the way to our next break at some Gapahuks, we stopped pretty often because Len told us things about the region or due to small damages on the bikes. On the whole way, I rotated from the forefront of the group where we raced a little bit, to the back, where I tried to motivate the guys who were losing their motivation. Most of the group did a very good job although everybodys butt was hurting. Our long lunchbreak which we had at a hydroelectrical power station was a good opportunity to regenerate and relax a while in the sun. At the last 20 kilometers, we had to cycle very slowly since some guys were really exhausted from the long way. Be that as it may, after around 6 -7 hours, all of us finally arrived in Kristiansand together.

For me this was one of the most interesting trips I have ever done because it involved some unexpected and rare experiences. Canoeing and staying overnight in the snow was totally weird but somehow miraculous. In the first two days the group admittedly worked well together even though some always had distance to the rest of the group. It was different on wednesday. Most of the time, we stayed together as a group or helped the slower cyclists to get back to the group. It was very interesting to see how the different people reacted in a situation like this, where they were partly totally exhausted. And even if some of us struggled with the long distance, looking back at the weather on thursday I think it was the right decision to cycle the whole way back to Kristiansand on wednesday!