25-27 February 2020

This month, we also had a fieldtrip with the Norwegian students. The groups were made earlier and at Monday 24, we came together to plan our trip. At first we were supposed to go skiing, but since there wasn’t any snow, we couldn’t. I was in a group out of 8 people. We decided to do a hiking trip and camp on our way in hammocks, my first time. We wanted to take the train to Nodeland, hiking up to Mosby, crossing the river and hiking back via Jegersberg.

We had planned to take the train on Tuesday at 14.06, but that morning, when we woke up, it was snowing. Some persons wanted to change our plans, instead of going hiking, they wanted to go skiing. I loved the idea but wondered if there would be enough snow on the slopes, but I didn’t say anything about it. We met at Spicheren to go through our plans and to make a new one for going skiing and camping around Jegersberg. After some talking we decided to stick to our original plan, I was really frustrated about that, because I had just brought all my stuff to the university and now, I needed to go back to drop of all my skiing gear. I couldn’t also use the train ticket from the earlier train anymore. We ended up taking the train at 16 o’clock and were with five people left, the others couldn’t unfortunately go.

First night in the hammock

In Nodeland we started walking with our big backpacks. We had a map of the area and someone had also an app with tracks, which was very useful! My gaiters were very helpful for walking in the snow and I had to get used to walking with a backpack, sometimes it was a bit heavy, especially when going up a hill. We walked for a bit and when it was around six, we were searching for a place to camp. I had barely any experience and let it up to the others where to camp. Someone took a look at the map and said that is was getting more flat around the corner. Getting the hammock hanging was easy and Manuel gave me a good tip to have a rope hanging where it is combined, to let the water going down instead of dripping into your hammock. Then I needed to put the tarp above the hammock, cause there was snow and wind expected that night. And I hadn’t any clue, how. I was just wondering around, waiting till someone got time to help me, but the others were busy making their own sleeping places set. And at one moment I realized that I would better start doing it on my own, otherwise I would get cold and I wouldn’t have a sleeping place at the end of the evening. So I started, spanning a rope above my hammock (with ‘normal’ knots; I have to practice the good ones). After that I put my tarp over it. Folded, because otherwise it was to big and in a diagonal way, because Manuel told me that way it was better, I don’t know why exactly. Then making the tarp tight was a difficult part. Luckily others had some more rope, mine was finished. So, for the next time, bring more rope then one long one. In the end I managed all, but the next time I had to span my tarp a little less high, cause the wind was blowing through it now. I could practice it the next day.

The next day I ate breakfast in my sleeping bag and we just took our time to get up. It was a little tough to find the right way to get out of the woods, but with map and compass, we managed. After walking for a couple of hours we were in a village (Strai) again and that was a good feeling. We were walking over the river, took a lunchbreak and were going further. At the part going up in the forest, we really underestimated how far it was, but especially how long it would take us. It was hard to go up with our backpacks and really exhausting, the snow was relatively deep. Our map was on a scale of 1:50.000, When I red the map, I underestimated the distances.. because the

View over Kristiansand

scale was bigger then I was used to. When we realized we won’t get were we wanted to sleep, we started searching for a good other sleeping place. I was happy we started searching because I suddenly felt really tired as well. I was happy when we found a place and setting up our camp was easier than the day before! Know I did know how to and we had enough trees around, my tarp was now a little lower than the day before. We made dinner and a campfire, which was hard to start and we definitely didn’t collect enough firewood. My socks and shoes were so wet and cold and I was really happy that I could go to bed and change

Waking up after the second night

my socks. I also used that night, my towel as a blanket and it helped to stay warm whole night.

The next morning we left early, so that I could go to home, have a shower before our class should start. The way back home felt so good, especially when we were on a ‘big’ track again.

After all I had a great experience! It was a good one and I’ve learned a lot. It was also a great oppurtunity to get to know everyone better! I discoverd that these trips are also very social events and that you talk about different things than you do in school.