In the week after our Easter Break, we had our last winter trip. From Tuesday, 3rd till Friday, 6th of April we went to the Berdalen region for the snow-cave trip. We all met at the parking lot of Berdalen at 1 o’clock and got ready to head off to Berdalsbu, a dnt hut about 6km away from our starting point. As the weather has been very springlike with quite high temperatures over Easter, I was wondering whether we were going to have enough snow still. But against all expectations snow was not a problem as it was snowing all day long.
Our group was dived into two. One half was led by Tim, the other half by Sintre. I was in Sintre’s group together with 11 others. Tim’s group headed off first and we went after them. The way to Berdalsbu was slightly going uphill all the time, with some steeper parts in between. The landscap was mainly made up by hilly terrain with a lot of trees 
and surrounded by mountains. As it’s been snowing from the morning onwards we had nice fresh snow to ski on. But unfortunately skiing turned out to be quite hard on that snow. I still had some Klister on my skies, as it was really warm the week before. So my skies were too sticky in the beginning. After a while though, my skies got more and more slippery as the Klister got off and too cold to work anymore. But the ones that put on green, blue or purple wax didn’t get any grip as well. So we just had to accept that nothing would really work in these conditions. Instead we had to walk more in Zic-Zac and use our arm a bit more than normally. On the way we we got some navigation exercises every now and then. Therefore Sintre either gave us some features we had to point out once we saw/reached them or he asked us where on the map we are and where we had to go to. As we were the second group we could cheat a little bit in finding our way to Berdalsbu by following the other groups track. But I still tried to follow our way on the map and find out where we were when we stopped. Due to snowfall and fog orienteering was a lot harder than usually, because we couldn’t use the high mountains that were surrounding us. But there were still a few things we could 
use. There was a small stream along our way. Although it was covered in snow you could sometimes guess where it was by looking at the ground. And also the shape of terrain (going uphill, wide flat area,…) helped to find one’s position on the map. But without the big features (mountains) and a wide few, I experienced orienteering to be a lot more difficult. So I wasn’t always one hundred percent sure where we were. Sintre always went around and wanted each of us to show him where we are on the map. Most of the time, I got it right. Sometimes he went in the front, but most of the time he let us go first and find us the way ourselves. Some of the boys always went first in the beginning. So after a while he asked Sarah and Maike, who were in the back at the beginning, whether they want to go to the front for a while. According to what I’ve learned about leadership awareness and skills, he made sure that everyone got involved in the process of orienteering and leading the group to the hut. According to Forsyth (2010) leading involves “a number of interrelated activities, including analysing, consulting, controlling, coordinating, deciding, […], organizing, planning […]” (p.251).
My bag-pack was a little heavier than on the trips before, as I had all the breakfast and half of the food for our snow-hole group, as well as the stove and a saw. This I could feel, but as it was only 6km this day it wasn’t a problem.
Once we made it to Berdalsbu each group went into one of the two huts. Tim and Sintre stayed in our hut, as it was the bigger one. Tim told us to divide into three groups: One 
should clean the floor from the snow we brought in, one should get firewood and the third should get snow. This worked pretty well and everyone was doing something. I didn’t see anyone social loafing. So “together we achieved more” as Pat Williams would say. The rest of the evening we spend cooking, sitting together and talking. Sarah and I had Tortellini with blue cheese for dinner. Tom, Rob, Scott, Brad, Sarah and I were also playing some games we found in the hut. I think right now we’ve developed a pretty good group cohesion. Everyone gets along with each other, supports each other and gets involved in the group and the things that have to be done. According to Tuckman’s group development model I’d say we are in the norming, if not already in the performing stage. The group is getting structure and our cohesion grows (Forsyth, 2010, p.130).
As the weather forecast for the next day still said clouds, fog and snow we decided not to start too early. So we left at 10 o’clock for a ski tour. As we planned on coming back to the hut for lunch we only took our daypacks or half empty big packs. Tim’s plan was to walk up a mountain and look for good spots to build our snow-caves. We didn’t make it too far though, as no one got any grip. So as our leader Tim decided to head back to the hut and have lunch earlier, because there was no point in going up a hill if no 
waxing worked and everyone just had to struggle. And we already saw two suitable spots for our snow-caves, which was the main aim of this day’s ski tour. After lunch we grabbed all our stuff from the hut and went to the spot where we planned on building the snow-caves. This spot was big enough for all 6 groups, so we didn’t have to split up the group, which was really nice. In teams of four we dug snow-holes as described in Cunningham and Fyffe (2007). There are several ways to dig a snow hole. This “depends on a number of factors, such as the size of the site, depth and hardness of the snow, availability and type of equipment and the number in the group” (Cunningham & Fyffe, 2007, p. 226).” As we’ve been four people we decided to build a two-door snow-hole, so two people could work on each door. The snow was also pretty deep and the site big enough to build snow-holes that could fit four people in. I was in a group together with Sarah, Sam and Aaron, so the boys worked on one door and Sarah and I on the other. 
We started to dig the two entrances parallel and on the same level, about 2-2,5m apart from each other on the upper part of the slope. “Working on the upper part of the slope gravity assists in clearing the snow” (Cunningham & Fyffe, 2007, p. 227). So we didn’t have to move the snow several times. In the beginning Sarah was digging and I got the snow away behind her. We took several changes in these actions. Later we found out that we made the entrance too wide. Shoulder-wide would have been enough. This meant that we did some unnecessary extra work. But this way it was at least easier to get the snow out. Once we’ve been in far enough we started digging to the side at hip-height to join the doorways and form the sleeping-platform. Here it was helpful to use the snow saw to cut blocks, as described in Cunningham and Fyffe (2007, p.219 f.). Blocks are easier to remove and you can also use them later on to block the 
entrance. As we only had one snow-saw Sarah and I used a wood saw and our shovels most of the time, which also worked pretty well. It was important to make the roof dome-shaped. This transfers more power to the sides and prevents the ceiling from bending down. After a while Sam came over and said that they rather want to make a two-person snow-cave as it’s faster. Sarah and I haven’t been so happy about that, because we thought that it is more fun with four people in the snow-hole and we also wanted to share breakfast. So we told them that we rather prefer to do it as planned with four people but we accepted their decision. I think they have already been a bit exhausted, as their entrance was even wider as ours and until then we also didn’t take any breaks. Although we didn’t want it to, our mood dropped a little, but we kept on digging. Finally they came over again and said that it is actually okay to join our holes. It wasn’t that much more work we had to do and once we could hear each other we got pretty excited. It didn’t take that much longer until we connected our two sides. In the end 
we’ve all been happy that we joint our snow-caves, as it was nice and big enough for us and all our gear. We even made a kitchen on one side. To make sure that no water is dripping down we tried to make the roof as smooth as possible with the back of our shovels and our hands. After that we blocked one entrance with the snow-blogs. The other one we blocked down far enough, so the entrance was lower than our sleeping platform. As warm air is rising up this makes sure that the warm air stays inside and doesn’t leaves the snow-hole. So the temperature inside usually doesn’t drop under 0°C. One problem occurred here: As the entrance was too wide our snow blogs haven’t been long enough. To solve this problem we made the entrance smaller by first building a vertical wall on one side, before putting on the blogs on top. In total it took us a bit more than five hours to build the snow-hole. But the result was very satisfying.
By the time we finished the weather also got better and we could enjoy some evening sun. We slid down the snow with bump-sledges and had a look at the other groups’ snow-holes. Around 8 o’clock we went into our snow-hole and made dinner. Sarah and I had quinoa with vegetables. When it got dark we’ve put some candles in the shelters we dug to store things. This gave our snow-hole a cosy atmosphere. To sleep we put a tarp under our mats and folded it up on the sides to make sure no one touches the side and gets a wet sleeping bag. Sleeping in the snow-hole was really comfortable.
The next day it was still cloudy with bad visibility, so we started again at 10 o’clock. In the morning we did avalanche exercise. This day Tim was leading my group. We walked up a mountain until we got to part that was steep enough to dig a snow profile (it has to be 30° or more). We made two tests: A shovel test and a Rutschblock test to analyse the avalanche risk. Therefore we dug two isolated snow columns as described in Cunningham and Fyffe (2007, p.90ff.). The column for the Rutschblock test was about 2m by 1m, dug around on three sides. For the shovel test we just dug on the front. Then we put in a probe half a metre behind and used a rope to cut the snow. Doing so we got an isolated triangle shaped block. First we had a look at the snow profile. Tim showed us how to look for different layers by pushing your fingers or fist into the snow from top to bottom. Depending on how far you can get in, it is a rather hard or a soft layer. We found three interesting layers in the upper part. To find out if there is any avalanche risk due to these layers we then did the two test. For the Rutschblock test Sam stepped on the column with his skies. He didn’t even jump, but the upper layer already came off. With the shovel nothing happened, even when hitting the shovel with full arm. Probably the column we isolated was too big for the shovel, because when Tim slightly pushed it with his feet from the top the upper layer also came off. By pushing harder (with skies and feet) there was even a second layer coming off. This showed us that there was a risk of avalanche in this area, so we didn’t go down the slope over 30° but a less steep one. On the way down we practiced traversing and Telemark-skiing. Tim also told us about the different slopes there are: concave, convex and uniform slopes. The convex slopes are usually the most dangerous ones. You don’t see what comes behind and there are more likely to be avalanches as they are not as supported from underneath as the concave or uniform ones are. This is an important thing when planning a rout. You can see it on a map by looking at the contour lines: A convex slope will be widely spaced at the top and closely spaced on the bottom and the other way around for a concave slope. On a uniform slope the contour lines are evenly apart from each other (avalanche.org; orienteering.com).
After lunch we spent the rest of the evening building a “playground”, which was a lot of fun. We had four activities: Our group made a slalom parkour and a bumps-and-dips-slope, while the other group built two jumps and an organ-tramp. Once we were done, we divided into four groups and got some time to try out all the activities. Then we had a competition. The plan was that one person of each team has to compete in one activity. This made sure that everyone got involved but people could do what they were best in or felt most confident with. But as the slalom was a bit too narrow for two at the same time and the organ-tramp too rutty, Tim suggested to just to the bumps-and-dips and the jumps with two persons from each team on each activity. But he let us as a group decide how we finally wanted to do the contest. According to Coaching and Leadership theories I think this was a good example of leading: by letting the group decide people feel involved and the activity is also their and not just the leader’s thing. We agreed to it the way Tim suggested, as these two things were also the most fun ones. After the competition we went back to our snow-caves and had dinner. As it was already quite late we played some cards, melted snow and then went to bed.
On our last day we had great weather. After getting up and having breakfast (I made porridge with oats, nuts, milk powder and cinnamon for our snow-cave-group) we packed our backpacks and then met Tim and Sintre at the hut. Due to the amazing weather, different skiing levels and motivation in the group, they gave us two options: We could either go on a ski-tour with Tim up on a mountain and then back to the carpark or we could go directly and slowly back to carpark with Sintre. I chose to go with Tim. The snow was just amazing to ski on and the sun was shining all day long. In the beginning it was all going uphill until we reached the top. After the first bit, Tim let us lead the group. He divided the track up into 
shorter legs. I took the first part, which turned out to be the longest. First I measured the distance and time by using my map and compass. I had to lead the group to a dip. To get there I tried to orienteer on the features and also made a rough bearing. I was a little excited weather I’m going to make it, because at one point I wasn’t quite sure if it’s already been too far. But it worked out well. I only underestimated the time for about 5 minutes. It took us about 25 instead of 20 minutes. At the very top we had a lunch break. I was hoping that my feet get warm by then. But unfortunately they didn’t. The reason for my cold feet have been my really wet shoes. They have been 
completely soaked inside after we dug the snow-hole and got even worse during the following days. I’ve put them into my sleeping bag during the nights but that didn’t help at all. I guess they are just too old. After the break, it was mostly downhill, which was really nice and good practice for our Telemark-skiing. Every now and then Tim told us things about the area, such as which minerals the rocks are made out of. I noticed that as a leader it’s handy to always have some knowledge on the area as well as some interesting or fun facts you can talk about.
Although the weather hasn’t been the best I had a great week and learned a lot. I was most impressed by our snow-hole. I didn’t expect the snow-holes to be so big and comfortable. And the “playground” we built was a good inspiration for my future job as a teacher. 
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.