«the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen» 

This trip have definitely given me the most beautiful nature sceneries in my life. The water was flat like a mirror and the snow was falling in big snowflakes in a slow motion as they hit the water surface. It was crazy beautiful and even crazier that when you look a cobble of meters out to the water it looked like the snow was going up towards the sky. The first day brought us weird weather, but some unforgettable nature pictures in the back of my head.

The weather in terms of the snow was making it a bit colder, but it was very dry snow and I was very happy that it wasn’t raining. The rain would have made it a cold and soaked experience and «tarred» on the mental positive mind I had through the trip. Doing the canoeing I was paddling with Adam, which was very good. He is an experienced paddler and it made it easier for me to not feel like I should take responsible for a kano with a less experienced person. I think that in the beginning I was feeling a little like I was social loafing, because I was not giving me a 100 %, because of my small back injury, but I decided that I was not going to be social loafing because I wanted to do the best I could within the a

mount of paddling I could do.

But with that in mind we were leading the first leg and teaching the other to do the basics paddling techniques. That meant that we also were deciding which way we were going to paddle.

And at a certain point we found ourself with more than 50 meter between each kano in «open water» a long way from the coast. It was not the plan, but because we took the choice of be

ing in the back making sure that everyone were gathered, the plan of sticking to the coast line changed when we had to inform the others. To long distance and to difficult to explain the aim, we ended up paddling in a direction that made

the risk and danger potential higher that if we had sick to the original plan and leading the group in front and informed that everyone should be on your left hand side. Because if someone were going to be falling or capsize in the water, it was going to take a long time to get them to shore and have dried clothes on.

But the rest of the trip Julian and Joans leaded us to the island that we were going to stay at overnight. As we went around the small island looking for different spots to stay, I asked Jonas and Julian if it was okay that I teamed up with them. And we saw the potential in a half shelter that the previous group had build. We made it better or actually we just took their idea and mirrored it, put a tarp as a base in the rough and moss on top. Here I also struggled to not over do what I was able to do with my back, and as I left the heavy lifting to Jonas and Julian, I went and did all the small parts. Making it windproof and making it comfortable as the structure took form. A good team work and group dynamics I would say, everyone were keeping busy and the communication were good between us: what are we going to do, what can I do and how can I help the others in the group? That were questions that were the base of our group dynamics.

The next day the weather forecast had said a little bit more rain and wind around 8 m/s, but it stayed dry and the wind were in our backs. It made the last day a good and easy day. We paddle for 4-5 hours and then we pulled the canoes up and walked to Troll Aktive. There we got settled in two small Tippi huts, and went to town to eat cake and celebrate Adams birthday. It was a very nice first part of the trip and people in the class that I did not know as good grew on me slowly through the trip. Really interesting and have developed my perspective on our group dynamics and its cohesia.

The next day we decided to bike all the way home to Kristiansand because of bad weather, which meant no climbing and the trip would be one day shorter. The bike ride home were good, not to hard. If I was a 100 procent physical fit I would have thought that it could have been harder for my technical and physical perspective, but this also gave me a perspective of not being one of the strong people in the group. I was giving what I could give to the group but I was also letting the responsibility on some of the strong guys that have done a lot of MTB. I think that is a good lesson for me to step back and let other people take the load of helping the one that want and need help… Letting me focus on me and my performance.

One thing I that I definitely learned on this trip were though:

– «Remember to wear bike pants when you are going for a 85-90 km bike ride on a hard slim saddle!!»