Day one: Learned how to ski for the first time and got the hang of walking and moving around on them relatively well and centering my balance to grip nicely at points, however going downhill is still a struggle to me and I cannot seem to get my legs to flow naturally as they regularly do when snowboarding. My feet tend to stagger and stray from being parallel right before I go down, maybe I think too hard about it and just need to throw myself fully in and stop holding back. I’m sure I will get the hang of it through the next days, all in all was an extremely fun day. Snow was falling all day long, aside from the start up of rain in Kristiansand. We arrived and loaded up into the lodges and had a nice lunch and tea, and even a nice group yoga session before heading out into the snow. We grouped up and waxed our skis and headed into the powder to start the day. My clothing seemed to work great aside from my feet getting a bit cold at times so I think I should start double layering my socks as one doesn’t seem to prove to be enough. I didn’t get too hot as I only wore one thermal underwear layer with my soft shells and my rain jacket on top and it seemed to work just fine. Solid first day out and lots of laughs paired with swearing along the way, had a plethora of falls throughout the day and slowly perfecting my stance when going downhill, but each new run seems to be a new learning curve. Learning to ski without poles was nice on flat ground, and i felt very confident in moving on them alone. Need to relax when going downhill, as I kind of just veer off the edge and hope for the best right now. Trying to get my legs to naturally take control but they seem to be a bit lost along the way down, hoping for further improvements tomorrow.

Day two: Sun is shining through the fog and trees. Beautiful start to set the scene of a beautiful day. First day out on the ski tracks and looking forward to getting a full feel of what it means to cross-country ski with a pack on my back.

Skied about 14km. Thomas was an awesome instructor. Felt a hell of a lot more confident skiing today and had no worries going down hills and just took it in and relaxed and let the flow state take place. The snow was blanketed all throughout the fields and the grip was amazing when going up the hills. I believe I could get some better glide wax as I was falling behind practically all day. I scraped off a layer of the grip wax to try and help the glide and it slightly helped but it was hard to really tell. Skied up to the summit together and it was a beautiful day to do so. Not a cloud in the sky and could see every which way for miles and miles. Was pretty breezy at the top but well worth the trek. Going up hill at times was quite enduring and i’m still not too great at the sideways walking up the slopes. Struggle to get my feet to get in at an angle and my skis are often slipping behind me, but I noticed that I seemed to overthink this process as well and when I kept my head up and focused on the climb more than my feet I seemed to be able to get up with little to no struggle points.  Going down was quite the journey, I kind of just went for it and hoped I didn’t fly off the track, slowly getting the pizza technique down but I struggled going down and my tips crossed a number of times on my way down, but I made it slowly but surely and am trying to perfect my turns and slowing down without falling on my ass every other turn. My legs still lack the ability to find a natural bend when trying to slow down and I can’t seem to balance my central weight well enough to slow quickly.  My left foot was loose a bit as well and I got a nice blister on my heel and big toe was rubbing a bit which wasn’t too comfortable, so I need to start wearing two pairs of socks from this point out and will also put on some padding and tape to try and keep it from getting worse. Thomas had a lecture about what to keep in a day pack and he had quite a nice set up. I liked the idea of carrying safety pins in your first aid kit aside from a sewing kit as it is a quick temporary fix to any tears that may come my way and won’t have to worry about messing with a thread and needle in the mean time, as that could be rather intensive trying to patch something up in harsh conditions. I also noted that I need to get a safety reflexive band as it would be a nice thing to have along for safety.  

Day 3: Put on two pairs of socks and padded and taped my blistered heel and big toe for protection. Used the iron on my skis today and wow it took a minuscule amount of time and did a much better job than the cork with the skis being so cold. Today’s aims are perfecting my turns and stopping today, and to hopefully fall less..

Had a nice day out. Fell many times and learned to ski on one leg, but it was fun and slowly getting better. Learned to make an emergency snow shelter in and around trees or snow piles with shovels, and I dug a mini snow hole into the side of a mound of snow. Could have closed it in a bit more as I opened it up pretty wide at the start, with the idea of burrowing in deeper, but there was a fallen tree beneath it and rock that stopped me and so I went down the side instead. Learned to shovel into blocks when digging in, in order to allow easy removal and easy replacement when piling snow back up or into patches to aid further cover. Was fun seeing each group members creation and the different ideas and obstacles with each situation. It seemed that the best cover was from the base of a Norwegian spruce in which had been covered with snow piles at the bottom. The branches are thickly bunched together and hang down, allowing the snow to easily gather on the outside of it and create a near perfect cone shape to build upon from the outside and inside after removing any branches that may be in the way. Getting better with my ski technique and going up hills quicker and feel lots more confident going down hills. Been using less energy with my strides and getting better at skating in the lines in order to move further which each step. Foot kept falling out of my ski’s at times and figured out that there was ice on the binding, used the top end of the ski pole to remove it and after that I had no more issues the rest of the day.

Day four – Looking to improve my one legged down hills, especially my left leg. Rauridh gave me blister pads to get me through today and tomorrow so that was nice. Looking forward to another snowy day hopefully..

The ski tracks were very icy and no fresh snow was around, foggy day and struggled immensely to get up hills at the start. We stopped after a bit of a trek and applied some more wax, and the thing that worked the best we found was a layer of uncorked red wax. We practiced out skating technique and I was pretty poor at it, but was slowly kind of getting the hang of it. We went for some time and down many steep hills in which I nearly always lost control at some point, I could not seem to stay on my feet and it was an extremely hard time for me all day as I fell on practically every hill. Yesterday I was smooth cruisin’, maybe it was just the conditions or I was just out of state today, but all the while I still had a blast of a day and falling is apart of it all. We sat and had a snack 1/4 of the way through and a tea break which was a nice recovery and talked with Tim for a bit, he’s a super nice guy. We then skied for about 4kms more and then had lunch at the bottom of the camel hills under an emergency shelter, as Bec had injured her knee. After lunch we grouped with Len’s group and began to go off track into the fresh powder. We ended up going the wrong way but thankfully only for about 100 meters, then doubled back and went up a steep slope to start our way back. The snow was beautiful, huge flakes once it came and everywhere was pillowed and such a peaceful sight all around. Had a much better time going up hills with my ski’s slanted today and felt that my technique had majorly improved for the most part, but still struggled here and there at times. We went up and down many hills for about two hours. This was where I really began to struggle as the tracks from prior people became extremely quick and I would get locked in and lose control, and more often than not end up on my ass, but I thankfully never ended up injuring myself and just fell into fresh powder so all was good. Learned how to do the shoulder technique to move forward and that was fun to mess around with all day. Got the arms burning but saved the legs some energy so was nice to balance the two out throughout the day. Came home and made some tomato soup and noodles with veggies and a fresh pot of coffee thanks to Michael, and chilled till 20:00 then went to the hut for our culture night around a fire with a gazebo’d vent in the middle of the room. Was a cozy setting and an awesome night. Learned an Australian dance, a german drinking dance, and I showed everyone the cha cha slide. We played find the murderer, ninja, a Swiss ski song and dance, watched an awesome german skit that Michael, Simon, Jonas, and Alex performed; displaying how angry Germans sound when they talk, and then reiterated the same conversation in English and it turned out to be an extremely innocent conversation about waxing their skis, cooking dinner, and then a conversation about them having to perform something tonight. Was a great sketch and funny to watch. Last but not least, we learned two Scottish dances which were a lot of fun. Late but fun night. Looking forward to a nice last day out tomorrow and ready to return back to Kristiansand in time To catch the end of the student price week and get some solid meals and relax this weekend.

Day five – Last day out in Evje, we practiced orienteering and thankfully had some really nice conditions that made for an easy going day. We only skied for half a day today but learned as a collective that it’s best to read maps together and to discuss the options before taking off, as one group decided to go along a track in which took us somewhere in twice the time that another route would have provided us, however it was a nice scenic route but a nice learning curve. We practiced our telemark turns for quite some time and I slowly improved on mine throughout the time spent, but it is hard to concentrate on keeping your body angled down the hill all the while also focusing on the movement of your legs. I seemed to get it down pretty well towards the end though. After awhile, we skied down a ways and had lunch along a cliffside that we ate at a few days prior. Jonas and I prepared a solid bench that fit mostly the whole group, however half of it was already made from the day prior, but we took the credit when given. Had a nice stop before heading back to the main area where we ended up regrouping with the others and did some down hill practice with slow turns between ski poles, until a grooming truck came down and we decided to call it a day. We all paired up and put our bags in the back and had a nice race to the vans at the bottom of the track which was fun and I felt really confident on the last run as I never took any falls and had quite a bit of speed while going down. Fun last day.

All in all, it was an incredible trip and I had a lot of fun learning how to ski and grew a lot closer with many of the group members from spending so much time together and felt like everyone had turned into one big happy family during this time. Everyone was in a positive mood and mindset for most of the time and I highly enjoyed the constant positivity and new experiences that came with every day. The cabins were super cozy and worked out great, Tim was an incredible instructor and very interesting and knowledgable guy. Looking forward to the ski trip in March with him, and his business at TrollAktiv is pretty inspiring along with his day by day life in general as he seems to be fairly well off and also spends most of his time in nature as his main business functions through the use of the outdoors which is awesome. Thomas was also a nice guy to get to know and really helped make me feel more comfortable and confident through learning new techniques when going down and up hills, and skiing in general. Looking forward to the trips with everyone in the future and to getting better at skiing with every new adventure.