In the week of February, 19^th we had our first self-organized student field trip. The aim was to go on a several days skiing tour, carrying a big backpack and camping outside for at least two nights. I was really excited and looking forward to this trip, as I’ve never really been snow-camping and on a longer skiing-tour before I came to Norway. But this also meant that we had to plan and prepare everything carefully, which wasn’t too easy as we didn’t have a lot of time to do so.

Planning & Preparation

I was in a group together with Theresa, Sarah, Sam and Jet. We first planned on doing a five-day circuit tour north of Haukeliseter. But due to weather conditions, with a lot of snow and wind we changed our plans and decided to do a three days and three nights skiing tour from Haukeliseter to Hovden (see map underneath).

We found a good and detailed map of the region on norgeskart.no, which we printed out for all of us. In total the track was 45km long and led through pure nature with no civilization on the way. The area included some mountains, flat parts and a few lakes we had to cross. While skiing we sometimes saw animal tracks and once we even spotted a reindeer herd quite far away. As we planned on camping outside all three nights, I brought a tent, a foam mat and an air-mattress, as well as my winter sleeping bag. The last two times I was sleeping outside in Odderoya and Jegersberg I used just the air-mattress and just my winter sleeping bag, which was okay, but also not too warm in the -2°C we had. As the comfort temperature of my sleeping bag is -4°C and the weather forecast was on -10 to -12°C I also brought a fleece inlay and my summer sleeping bag to put inside this time. This turned out to be pretty good. I slept nice and warm enough all nights.

The tour

We started our trip early Monday morning by car from Kristiansand. As we didn’t have any racks to put our skies on the car we went together with another group that planned to do the same tour as we did. Getting 11 pair of skies, a pulk and all the luggage on and in the cars was our first challenge of the trip. Luckily we planned with some extra time and with an hour delay we finally managed to leave Kristiansand and the bad rainy weather. In Hovden we parked the cars and took the bus up to Haukeliseter. As we had to change buses in between with a waiting time of two hours we arrived in Haukeliseter in the dark. Thanks to the Allemannsrett we just had to look for a flat area that was far enough away from houses and private property to camp on (Government Administration Services,1957). With our skies we flattened the area and then waited for a bit so the snow could settle, before setting up our shelters. Theresa, Sarah and I were sleeping in a tent together, while some of the boys were bivouacking. Sleeping in the tent was quite comfortable and 4kg amongst three people was a weight we could handle to carry pretty well in addition to our other gear. Before we went to bed we made a fire to warm up and to melt some snow. I also made a hot water bottle, I was very happy about at night. The next day we started skiing around 9 o’clock. It was a really nice and sunny day and the snow conditions were just perfect. In Cunningham and Fyffe (2010) the kind of snow we had is described as “Powder Snow” (p. 80). The nice fluffy layer on top made it easy and nice to ski on. The first part of the track was flat, but then it started to go uphill a lot with some shorter downhill parts in between. We had one lunch break and some shorter breaks for snacks, drinks and to change the pulk. This first day was a really long one with 19km in total and the last bit we were even skiing in the dark. As everyone was a little tired and exhausted we stayed other than planned in the dnt hut that night.

 

The second day was a bit shorter in distance (around 13km) and a lot shorter in time as the terrain was rather flat compared to the other day. We sat up our camp around 3 o’clock and used the rest of the day to play around a bit. There were some hills we used to practice on our downhill skills and we also climbed up some smaller mountains. Without the big backpack my Telemark-skiing already works quite well, but with the backpack I’m still struggling. Rob and I also dug a snow profile and made a shovel shear test,  as described in Cunningham and Fyffe (2007, p.90f.). We found out that the area was pretty avalanche save as there was no snow coming out, even when hitting the shovel on top of the snow with full power. By the time we started cooking

and making a fire the sun was already gone, so it got colder. As we only had a few logs, we decided to not put one underneath, which turned out to be a bad decision. The fire quickly burned down into the snow and finally went out. By trying to get it on again we all got pretty cold, especially on hands and feet and I even cut myself. So we decided to leave the fire and use our stoves instead for cooking and melting snow. Looking back, we should have started cooking and especially melting snow earlier, when it was still warmer. Melting all the snow to cook and to have enough to drink I experienced to be one of the toughest things. I only had one thermos, as I gave my other bottle to Sam, who lost his on the bus. So I think I didn’t drink

enough during the days. For the next trip I will definitely take two bottles. But when being outside all day and night long, you also have to make sure that the water in normal bottles doesn’t freeze. For the nighttime it helps to take it into the sleeping bag. Regarding food, Theresa and I (we were sharing food) learned from camping outside in -25°C in Geilo two weeks ago. There all our food got frozen. So this time we didn’t take any water containing food. Instead we had Asian noodles for the first night and frost-dried field food for the second.

For lunch we took crispbread, pepper sausages and some nuts we filled in little bags. Our breakfast was a self-made mix of oats, nuts, seeds, milk-powder and cinnamon and gave us a lot of energy for the day. I was very happy with our choice of food, as it was rather light to carry, fast cooking, nutritious and didn’t freeze.  Before going to bed that night, Aaron, Marijan and I skied around for a little while to get and stay warm.

 

On our last day we had two uphill parts, but the rest was rather flat and when we finally reached Hovden it was all downhill. As the track was marked with branches most of the time, orienteering was easier than I expected it to be. Although I already improved a lot on this since I’m in Norway, I think orienteering in a completely unmarked area would still be a challenge for me.

 

I was really happy with the equipment I brought. The only things I didn’t use were my spare socks, a spare set of long sleeve merino trousers and shirt and the ski-goggles, I brought in case the weather turned bad. So for the next trip of that kind in similar conditions I would bring the same equipment. The only thing I might change would be the cooking stuff: I brought a normal gas bottle, which I wrapped in some foam-mat. One night it didn’t work properly, probably because it was too cold. So next time I think I should either take winter gas or red spirit if temperatures are the same.

 

Looking back we had a lot of fun and a good time together. But there also were a few group related things that haven’t been so good: Some people were taking the pulk longer and more often than others. On the first evening, when we ended up skiing in the dark, we didn’t communicate weather to keep on skiing or to stop. Instead the group was spreading apart. We also didn’t talk about weather camping outside or going inside the dnt hut the second night. When it came to tidying up or getting and melting snow, some were working, while some just didn’t do anything. In regard to the stages of group development I would say that we are in between “Forming” and “Stroming” right now (see Forsyth, 2010, p. 130).

To cover things up it was an impressive three-days skiing tour through amazing scenery in great weather conditions and on nice fresh snow. I was very satisfied with the equipment and food I took. As I wasn’t really missing anything but also didn’t take too much, my backpack had a good weight to carry (around 12-15kg). Due to the long day and some missing communication in the group we didn’t sleep outside the second day, so it would be interesting to experience what it’s like to stay outside two nights in a row. The one thing that could have been better on this trip was the communication in the group, concerning leading, taking the pulk and making decisions.

References:

Cunningham, A. & Fyffe, A. (2007). Winter Skills- Essential Walking & Climbing Techniques. Mountain Leader Training Handbooks- Volume 3 . Published by Mountain Leader Training UK.

Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group Dynamics. Fifth Edition. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Government Administration Services (1957). Outdoor Recreation Act. Retrieved from https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dokumenter/outdoor-recreation-act/id172932/