3-7 February 2020

On Monday 3 February, we were leaving Kristiansand to go to Syrtveit till Friday 7 February. At Sunday we dropped our big backpacks and loaded the trailer with them and the skis. When we arrived at Trollaktiv, we got enough time to get our stuff out of our backpacks and settle in the homes, we weren’t in a rush to go skiing and that was a good thing. I was in a house with seven other people, we had the big house. Every evening we ate and cooked together and sometimes it was difficult, because I am a picky eater and don’t like much, that’s makes it hard for me and the rest. I was prepared and brought some food I could eat when I didn’t like the dinner, but I’ve tried it every evening!

Every evening we had a lecture, it was about a day tour and what to bring and first aid. The lectures were very interesting, and the most information was new for me. Every day I have used the information about what to bring in your daypack, making sure I got that stuff in my backpack, to be prepared for the day. The lecture about first aid was also good to know. I need to fill up my first aid kit a bit, to have all the gear that is necessary.

At the first day we arrived there, we went for our first time on ski’s to Høgas. It had started to snow and we didn’t wax our ski’s yet. We practiced to balance and ski and, the most important thing, was that we got used to the ski’s. It wasn’t new for me to stand on ski’s. Every year we go downhill skiing and I’ve done some cross-country skiing once or twice when I was in Secondary school. Nevertheless, the feeling on cross-country skis was different from downhill skis and I thought it was quite hard. The next day, we went to the same ski area and we had good snow conditions. I had waxed my skis the day before with blue wax and it was working. We didn’t need to ski with our backpacks yet and that was nice. The sun was shining all day and it was a perfect ski day and I made progress.

Wednesday was for me a bad day. In the morning it was going okay. Tommasso and Alisha were filming that morning. We practiced our telemark in the thief snow and were doing a race against the other group. During the day, the snow conditions became worse and for me it wasn’t working. Because of that, my motivation to ski was going down and I didn’t enjoy it anymore. Up to new opportunities for tomorrow! The next day we went to Bortelid and I was glad that we were going to there, because I had seen Høgas in the three days we went there and because of the snow conditions. At bortelid it was very windy but, once on skis and going to the top, we were out of the wind. I really enjoyed going uphill, the pace was good and there was a very beautiful sight around. During our ski trips we also did some activities. Some of them were fun, some of them were hard. The one I liked the most was to make an anchor for abseiling down a cliff. I did it together with Jella and we were making the one for yourself. It had to be a teardrop and when we tried it, it worked! We also tried to make a shelter in case you need to survive a storm, I found it a little bit harder, cause I had no idea what to do. But after everyone was finished and we got to look at each other shelters, I got some more idea’s for the next time.

After the shelters and abseiling we were going down. That was hard, we needed to ski down the valley. Making z-lines and kick turns. There was a lot of trees in the way and at some time we just took our skis of and walked down to the track. Back on the tracks it went okay. When we arrived back at the beginning in Bortelid, we practiced our downhill skiing and that was fun! I made again progress and was trying!

The last day we did some skiing and navigation in Høgas. I enjoyed that one because navigating was going very well and that made me happy! I was glad I was back home again and after all I had a very fun week! I’ve laughed and learned so much. Now it is time to improve my skiing and practicing it.