From Monday, 5^th till Friday 9^th of February we went to Troll Active Center for our Basic Ski Course. Troll Active is located in Syrteveit, close to Evje, which is an hour drive away from Kristiansand. The area is surrounded by hills and forests and there is a big river on the other side of the road. So it’s a perfect starting point for outdoor activities. For our first day of skiing we just used the area around Troll Active. The other days we went up to Hogas, an area with many kilometers of prepared skiing tracks starting from 1,5 km loops up to longer 20 or 30 km routs. But Hogas is also nice for off-slope skiing, as there are many flat parts, including frozen lakes, to practice on basic cross country skiing skills, as well as little mountains we could ski up to, once we got used to the thin, rather loose skies under our feet. Troll Active Center itself includes one main building in which we had amongst other things our evening lectures and many smaller cabins to live in. Our group had one big cabin for 12 people, in which we all cooked and ate together and two smaller ones for 6 people each. There also was a dry room for our skies and other gear and a cozy assembly cabin, with a big fire place in the middle, we used for our Ceilidh on Thursday evening.

As I and some others already arrived Sunday night at Troll Active, we could organize the house and help the others unpacking their things when they arrived Monday morning. I also went to Evje in the morning to get some fresh food for the whole group, such as bread and milk. Once everyone got settled, we started with our skiing course. Therefore we were divided into two groups. One group was taken by Len, the other by Tim, the owner of Troll Active. I was in Tim’s group together with 11 other students. The days were all structured pretty much the same: During the day we’ve been outside skiing in different areas and in the evenings we had lectures. Except from the first and last day we started skiing at 9.30 and finished around 4 o’clock. In our evening lectures we learned a lot about waxing, first aid and how to pack a daypack.

For our first day on skies we used the area right behind the cabins. We started with basic things such as how to put on the skies, how to turn, how to stand on the skies and how to move. I’ve done a lot of downhill skiing before, but I’ve only been on cross country skies once when I was a little child. So it felt quite weird and unstable at the beginning. Compared to downhill skies, your boots are only fixed to the skies in the front and the boots are rather like normal walking shoes.  I had the feeling that I was about to lose my skies while standing on and moving with them. Cross country skies are also a bit longer and a lot thinner than downhill skies, which is why I had to get used to the new proportions. Tim explained and showed us everything step by step and always gave us some time to try out the different things. For the ones that picked up things a bit faster he had some variations to show, such as different ways how to turn: You can either turn by first turning one leg for 180° and then the other one or you can jump around for 90°, 180° or maybe even 360°. This “playing around” gave the others, that were a little slower, time to practice on the basic things. In a next step we started to move on our skies, first in a form of walking and then we tried to slide, in the beginning without and later with our ski poles. Again Tim explained everything in detail and demonstrated how to do it. While we were skiing in circles, he was standing in the middle watching us. He learned our names really quick, so he could give us individual feedback right from the beginning. To get a better feeling for the proportions and the different ways how to move on cross country skies we played some games. Four teams were racing against each other. Therefore we had to move in different ways: running, backwards or in tandems, with and without poles. This really helped me to get a good feeling standing on those skies. As I learn a lot from watching people, it was also very helpful that Tim demonstrated everything and some things, such as walking up the hill (either sideward or in herringbones), are even similar to downhill skies. I started picking up things pretty quick and improved a lot within the first couple of hours. So I could help others in my group, that were still struggling a bit.  While we were practicing walking up in herringbones, sliding or skiing down little hills, Tim was standing on top of the hill and gave feedback or explained things again to some of us. In the afternoon we were touring around the area for a bit. Tim went in the front and we followed him. So I learned how it feels to ski on unprepared and uneven ground. We also got some time to play around. We skied down little hills and walked them up again, still trying to practice on basic skills, such as stopping and keeping balance. Tim was always standing besides us, watching us and sometimes giving feedback.

In the evening we had a really interesting lecture about cross country skies in general and waxing in detail. From downhill skiing I’m used to put on wax, so you slide better. With cross country skies it is the opposite. In this case you put on wax to get grip, especially for going uphill. I was always wondering why cross country skies are curved and downhill skies are not. I learned that they are curved so you have more contact when standing on one ski, what you do when walking up and less contact when standing on both skies, what you do when skiing down. That’s also why you usually only put wax on the middle part of the skies. There are different types of wax for different temperatures, as the shape and hardness of the snow crystals varies. The colder the snow, the harder the crystals are and the harder the wax has to be to break those crystals. Tim suggested to put on green wax on the whole ski and one or two layers of blue in the middle if the weather is rather cold. I tried it out the other days and it worked out well for me.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went up to Hogas. In the mornings we practiced a bit more on technique. We improved our sliding and up-walking skills and learned the Telemark-position for going downhill off-piste as well as the double stroke for going down in tracks or moving on the flat. For the Telemark you have one foot in the front and your knees bended, which gives you more balance on uneven ground. Around midday we started to go on tours, mostly off-slope. While learning in the mornings was rather direct, with instructions and demonstrations from Tim, learning in the afternoon was more indirect. Tim told us how to behave when walking over ice: You should always follow the track of the leader and never gather all together on one spot. When we saw animal tracks he asked us what animal we think it was. I also learned how to spot wind directions from looking at the snow.  As a veileader Tim went in the front, so if for example the ice breaks or there is something underneath the snow he would be the person to struggle with this problem and he could have warned the others. But he also made the track by going in the front. As our veileader and instructor he was the person with most experience and he knew the area the best, so he knew where to ski and how and where to go up the hills. At some parts of the tour we stopped and he asked us where on the map we are, so I also improved my orienteering skills. I experienced that it is a lot harder to orienteer if there is a lot of snow, because then many features disappear. Lakes, mountains, power lines or tracks can be really helpful in this case.

My motivation was pretty high all the time. I especially liked walking in the pure nature off-track enjoying the views, sun, fresh air and untouched snow. But not everyone’s motivation was high all the time. Especially for the ones that were still struggling a bit, it was quite tough. One time when we were skiing up to Himmelsyna a girl in our group was pretty exhausted towards the end. So when I noticed this I started to walk together with her and talked to her about different things to distract her. I also encouraged her to drink some water and gave her a muesli bar, so she got some more energy.  Looking back on the week now, I think it would have been good to divide the group into an “advanced” and a “practice” group after the first or second day, because the ones that were a bit faster sometimes had to wait and got a little cold, while the slower ones had to struggle keeping pace with the rest and sometimes would have preferred to practice a little longer on some basic skills.

In the evenings we had lectures about first aid and how to pack a daypack. Typical injuries in cold weather are frost nibs or frost bites, hypothermia or dehydration. But also twists, cuts, breaks or hyperthermia (if you wear too many layers) happen. I noticed the importance of always having a first aid kit with you and knowing exactly what you have in there and what to use it for. It might even be helpful to mark things, so you know what they are for in case of an emergency. I didn’t know a lot about hypothermia before, so it was really interesting to talk about it in the lecture, as I think this is one of the things that can happen quite easily in cold weather conditions. I learned what some of the sign could be for a person having hypothermia, such as not talking anymore, making strange things, shivering and then stop shivering or slowing down. But it’s also important to know that there is no specific pattern, it can be different with every person. I was surprised that you should stop at least as long as it took this person to turn bad, e.g. 5 or 6 hours. The main thing I learned in the equipment lecture is that your day pack should be able to let you survive for one night. So you should bring a form of shelter (emergency (group) shelter, bivi-bag etc.), a mat, some extra food and water, a shovel and a warm jacket. As a veileader it is recommended to bring an emergency group shelter and extra first aid material.

On Thursday we went to an area in between Evje and Hogas and skied up to a mountain called Bertesknapen. This time Tim went last and in pairs we had to lead shorter parts. As we didn’t have proper maps we needed to orientate by knowing which direction we roughly have to go to and then find a good way to go uphill. Once we reached the top it was very windy and icy, so we started skiing down pretty quick. Tim showed us how to go down in Zic-Zac once the terrain gets step and is wide enough so you don’t have to do a snowplow. But skiing down turned out to be hard for some people. As we went one after the other in the beginning, we were standing a lot especially if people fell over. So Tim instructed us to do our own track and to overtake people if they fall. I felt all right on my skies going down, so I went last with one person of my group. His ski came off a couple of times, so he slowly fell back. I helped him to put on his ski again every now and then.  Throughout the whole week Tim made sure, that we had short breaks roughly every hour, to drink something and maybe eat some nuts or muesli bars. Once a day we had a longer lunch break. This day the weather wasn’t very good, it was cloudy, windy and a bit cold. So we all gathered in the group shelter to have our lunch. It was really tight, but we would have survived a night in this in an emergency. For the last bit we had to go downhill on a narrow path made by a snowmobile. People fell over a lot. As you could only go down straight, the only way to stop was with a snowplow. I also fell on my shoulder quiet badly once. I think this path wasn’t the best for us as a beginners group. The area around Hogas probably would have been better, as you have more options and the terrain is wider. In the afternoon we learned how to do Telemark-turns. Telemark skiing has its origin in Norway and is named after the Telemark region. It looks so easy, but it turned out to be really hard. You need to bend your inner knee and lift up your heel to do Telemark-turns. I liked the way Tim taught us how to do it step by step: First just the position, then trying to turn slowly to one side by bending your inner knee and finally trying to do two turn in a row. But looking back I think it would have been better to do this technical part in the beginning of the day instead of the end, as everyone was a bit tired after walking up to Bertesknapen and falling over a lot on the way down.

In the evening we all met in the assembly hut, made a fire and had an enjoyable and fun Ceilidh, where every nation presented a dance, made a show or played a game. I learned a really good and fun Scottish and Hungarian dance and laughed a lot while playing different games.  I think we have a good group cohesion. I get along with everyone very well. The whole week we were all cooking and eating together in the big house and we sat there in the living room, playing games, making music and talking together. We also had a big game going on:  “Assassin”, which we were playing for the whole week. But there are also differences between people and I could spot some of the group dynamic aspects, we were talking about in class, such as social loafing: Some people always helped cooking, cleaning up or asked if there is something to do, while others either didn’t see work or didn’t care about helping. But overall I’d say that we work quiet well together as a group and always try to support each other.

Friday was one of my favorite days, as I learned a lot about surviving in the cold and the mountains.  I also liked the structure of the day. In the morning our group did avalanche awareness and skiing practice and in the afternoon we swapped over with Len’s group and did emergency shelter building. Although I’ve been skiing a lot in the Alps before, I’ve never managed to intensively inform myself about avalanche knowledge. Therefore it was really interesting to learn how to use an avalanche transceiver and trying it out, by finding a buried rucksack. After our lunch break we started with the emergency shelters. Tim gave us some ideas and short input on what is important and what you can use, such as pine trees with overhanging braches. But the main learning outcome was by trying to build a shelter for ourselves. We divided our group in two and had half an hour to roughly build a shelter. My group chose a pine tree with long overhanging branches in a hollow. We used our skies and poles as a form of additional branches and put snow all around. We worked together really good as a team. After a short talk which spot to choose, we all started building the shelter together. Some were getting the snow from inside out, some put snow on the branches and the skies around and I and Janne were building a wall out of ice-blocks on the open side of the tree. It was impressive how quick we could build a decent shelter in which all 12 people could fit in. Before we had to leave Tim shortly explained us the most important things when building a snow hole, such as that you want at least 1,5m snow above you.

Altogether I didn’t only learn how to ski on cross country skies in this week, but also how to behave in an emergency, how to build an emergency shelter, what to put in a first aid kit, how to wax skies and how to pack a daypack. It was good mixture of technique, exploring the area on ski tours, playing around and theory.