First Self-organized Overnight Trip- 22nd-29th of January
The trip to Tromsø was my first self-organized overnight trip for this semester, which I made with Dom and Stella. The first two nights we stayed in Tromsø Camping, which is about 2 km away from the city center. Our main Trip was our five day tour from hut to hut. We slept all five nights in full equipped DNT Huts, but without electricity and flouting water, and we had to bring our own food.
Preperation
We arrived around 2 pm at Tromsø Camping. The first two nights we slept at Tromsø Camping and spend the days mainly for preparing and planning our ski tour. We got our DNT Key and Map of Troms festlandet, spent some time in the Library to get some more information about the area, did some Geo Caching and bought the food for the trip.
Main Trip
Day 1 (Wednesday, 24th of February):
Our Bus to Snarby left at 8:40 am. We drove about one hour to a car park near the track, which led us to our first hut Trollvasbu. Trollvassbu was only 4,5 km far away, but our Backpacks were very heavy (about 20 kg) and in the beginning I felt very unstable on my skis. Even very small downhills were a big challenge for me. But after the first kilometer I felt more confident and I skied faster. After one and a half hour we reached Trollvassbu, made lunch and planed our daytrip. We decided to go to a small lake 3 km away from the Hut. In the evening we thought about our plan for the next days. Instead of staying three nights at Trollvassbu we decided to leave the Hut after two days and go to Nonsbu
Day 2 (Thursday, 25th of February):
On the second day we made a long daytrip. This day we had to use the map a lot, because we left the tracks to ski up a mountain. The weather was very unstable and switched many times. When we started our tour at 8:30 a.m. the weather was very good, but when we reached the mountain it was suddenly very cloudy, and after we gained some height we were above a very low layer of clouds and hat pure sunshine with a nice view. After lunch we did a nice tour around the other hills and were back at Trollvasbu around 4 p.m.
Day 3 (Friday, 26th of Frbruary):
On the third day we skied to Nonsbu. Nonsbu is located 8 km south from Trollvasbu. After we reached the hut, Dom and I decided to go out for a short tour. It was very cloudy and we decided to stay in the area near to the hut. We went up south and skied up a small hill for a better view of the surrounding area. On the top I had my first white out. Now it was very cloudy, the sky and the snow became one and I felt very disorientated. I couldn’t say how high we actually were and how steep it was. Luckily I saw Dom, while he broke some snow with his skis, which role down the hill. That’s why I decided to throw some snow balls to see how steep it was, but after a few meters the snowballs disappeared in the snow. It took use a long time to find a got place to ski down. On the way back we saw our Hut all the time and the white out was gone.
Day 4 (Saturday, 27th of February):
One the fourth day we made a day trip to Blakolkolia. The hut was about 8 km away from Skalvasbu and we mainly followed the tracks and the science. On the way to the Hut was a long downhill so we had the chance to improve our downhill abilities. When we reached the hut, we met some Norwegian students, who gave us some information about the area, especially about the avalanche risk. We decided to ski up the mountain Blakollen. On the top we saw two reindeers and had a great view of the area around Blakokolia. On the way down we skied between small pine trees, which made it quite challenging, but we had a lot of fun. For the way back to Skalvasbu we chose nearly the same way we came from. On this day we made the most kilometers (about 20km).
Day 5 (Sunday, 28th of Febuary):
On this day we skied to Skarvassbu, our last hut on the trip. This Hut was about 13 km away from Nonsbu. On this day it was very cloudy, and first it was quiet hard because we had a whiteout again. We often used our poles to estimate our pace. After about 10 km of skiing the track, which led us to Skarvassbu, end. So we just had the map to find our way, but we also used Dom’s GPS to check our position to make sure that we are going in the right direction. About 1km km in front of the Hut we had to climb a. Every one of us was very exhausted, and when we reached the Hut, it was very windy and it began to snow. That’s why we skipped the planned daytour and stayed the rest of the day in the hut.
Day 6 (Monday, 29th of February):
On the last day we went back to Tromsø Camping. It snowed the whole night, so that we had to ski the last day in deep snow. Luckily it was mainly downhill. But near to the prepared tracks we end up going down threw lot of trees. I struggled a lot and fell down several times. In the deep snow it was very hard to stand up and I even lost my skis. That’s why my binding got icy and I didn’t took the time to clean them, because we needed to be in time to catch the flight. But that took even more time, because of not cleaning the skis I lost them every ten minutes. In the end I realized that I could have saved much time if I kept calm and cleaned my skis.
Learning Outcomes:
- Got experienced in planning a ski tour (equipment, food, time etc.)
- Improved my skiing technique in different snow conditions
- Got more practice in preparing and waxing my skis
- Learned to ski with a heavy backpack (better balance)
- Learn the principals of the DNT-system
- Improved my navigation skills in the winter environment.
- Experienced my first whiteout