Self organised skitrip to Langeid
After our ski course last week, we were supposed to improve our skiing skills and technique on our firts self organised ski trip. In contrast to last week we would need to ski with a big, heavy backpack instead of our comparatively small day packs. Furthermore we were comstrained to camp in a tent for at least two following nights and we needed to plan everything by yourselfs. Starting with sorting out the small groups, planning our lunch and dinner, equipment and route. Getting a big group split up into smaller groups tends to get complicated when individuals won’t make a decision on what group they want to stay in, where they want to go or putting their wishes first. In my opinion this process took a lot of unecessary effort, which could have been solved much faster and with a lot more effectiveness. This, for me, disticntly reveals the stage of our group, which In my opinion reached Tuckmans stage of Storming. Clearly lots of has had some different opinions and expactations about the group and the trip. But it needs to be communicated by all participants to find a solution.
Nonetheless we split up into small groups, but it wouldn’t be the last time I don’t understand why people who are supposed to work in a group and have already heard a lot about group dynamics, not only within this course, tend to wait for whatever option suits them best and decide entirely based on their own needs. That is when it becomes clear who is a real teamplayer or not and who is going to put back own interests in the sense of the group.
After we finally made a decision on our route all together,we split up into groups of two that would cook their own dinners together. Lunch and breakfast were left to each others own discretion and needs.
We split up the equipment of two tents, three trangias, two tarps and a group shelter amongst us, while everyone was carrying a probe, a shovel and a first aid kid.
While planning our trip and checking out the weather forecast, wind conditions and the avalanche risk we had to change our plans quite a bit. As the area we wanted to go in the first place was accounted to a high avalanche risk, we decided to stay further south of Agder. We ended up planning our trip around Langeid, but had to delay our trip of a day due to strong winds on Monday.
Tuesday,
Plan: Melanie, Leo and me leave Kristiansand by bus at 9.15 am, arriving in Langeid around 11.30 am. Our first aim for the day: Reach Tjønndalen cabin and set up the tent, make a fire, as the area is still quite foresty, have dinner and stay here the first night.
Wedensday,
Waking up, putting out tents together, head south-east and set up a basecamp there. The weatherorecast predicted sunny weather without snow, so it might be a good day to set up a nice basecamp, build a reasonable shelter that protects us from he wind.
Thursday,
Going on a daytrip around the lake Kolsheivatnet, starting from and heading back to the basecamp. As we didn’t have to pack our tents in the morning it was a good dopportunity for a longer skitrip that day.
Friday,
Packing up our tents and make our way back to Tjønndalen cabin, take a different way than we came and stay there in the cabin that night (as we might need to dry some of our cloths/equipment)
Saturday,
Head back to the car, catch the bus at 17:38 pm.We could sleep a bit longer, get a bit of a rest as the bus wouldn’t leave until around 5 pm.
What happend instead:
Tuesday: We started our trip with a short delay around 1 pm. The first section of our 7 km daytour startet with a fairly steep section up to almost 600 m. While waiting fort he others to arrive by car, we observed the weather changing quickly that day and thewind had blown quite strong. It took us about 2 hours to get up there and when we finally managed to reach to ‚plateau‘ the weather became worse. So our navigating skills had been put to the test. We’ve managed that quite good even though at some point we swung off the actual path and instead headed around the side of a small hill to our right and a big stream to our left. When it was almost 5 pm we decided to find a campspot as we wouldn’t make the last approximately 3 km before dark. Luckily, the wind set off a bit and it stopped snowing eventuall so we could set up our tents and build a small shelter (way too small) shelter to have dinner.
Wednesday: On Wednesday we had been delighted by the beautiful, sparkling sourrounding of our campspot. The sun was touching my face when I crawled out of the tent and listening to the only noise coming from the stream had been a delight that morning. As we didn’t reach the hut last night, we decided to head there on Tuesday and come back then, to the tents? Or not? Unfortunately, it hadn’t been very clear what our plan was as we didn’t make a plan all of us together the night before. Moreover, even though the campspot was nice, it wasn’t particularly suited to stay there longer as it had been a huge effort to get there. That kind of planning had been our first mistake I guess, but it would occur another. We didn’t set a time to leave, so it took some of our group members quite a long time to get ready whereas others had been ready for a while. Eventually we decided to head over to the hut and find a different camping spot over there to sleep there the second night. The way to the hut was easy to find as we could cross the two lakes instead of following the actual track. We picked a second pretty nice camping spot sorrounded by some trees on the foot of a small hill. Again we build a shelter to have dinner, this time everyone could fit in there at the same time. We we able to look up into a clear, dark blue sky and watch the stars as we were the day before, that made this trip even more memorable to me.
Thursday: Thursday morning we woke up after a quite night, but with lots of new snow and soaking wet tents and wet sleeping bags. We decided to stay the next night in the nearby dnt-hut, where we could also hang our gear out to dry. We didn’t set a time limit for this day either, but rather decided who wakes up first is going to wake up the others. That didn’t work out either, as people might be awake, which doesn’t mean they will start to put their stuff together. Unfortunately the weather became even worse and it took some of our group members a hell lot of time to get ready, so that others started to get cold. We finally, but definitiely too late, set off to a day trip and try to reach the peak of one of the mountains sorrounding us. It had been raining since midday, that all our cloths had been soaking wet in the evening. The hut was a blast to dry out everything. We would spend the night in Tjønndalen hut and decided to leave the next morning at 8 am. As the weather forecast predicted bad weather we decided not to do another daytrip on Friday but instead going back to Kristiansand. We decided to leave as early as that because A) obivously some people need a lot of time in the morning and B) we wanted to have enough time to find the way back as it has been snowing a lot the last days, and in case the weather is bad, we would need more time.
Friday: Luckily, the weather wasn’t as bad as we expected and we made it back to edge of the mountain in less than 2 hours. Due to that we headed out to another mountain top tour, because the bus wouldn’t leave before 5.30 pm.
In sum this trip had been quite an experience in different ways. The primary goal of this trip, going skiing, carrying a huge backpack, camping in the snow for two consecutive days had been achieved. We spend two nights in the tent with only a little bit of snowfall and a clear nightsky and also the skitrips had been quite a lot of fun, even though we could have had extended these trips. Therefor though it needs members to communicate better and people start trying to be a team player, at least for the duration of the trip. For that matter and some other incidents a bigger amount of team spirit, acceptance and effort, would have been necessary from everyone, in my opinion. I know, people do have different expectations and concepts regarding planning and performing trips, from my point of view however, I think our group spirit is still ugradable.