We had our first overnight trip, trying out the camping gear that the university lent us. When we first arrived in Jegersberg it was really cloudy and we got our tents set up quickly. Shortly after it started pouring down rain and mixed with the snow on the ground, it got slushy pretty quickly. I didn’t really have a water proof jacket so my new Norwegian winter jacket that I bought was soaking up the rain quite nicely. I wouldn’t really be able to wear it late but at least the puffiness would keep me dry for awhile. We proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon doing team building exercises in the rain and snow. Each country that was represented in our class had to present an exercise from their area and those with a large amount of people were split into multiple groups.
For the US I came up with an idea that one of my bootcamp instructors back home did with us while I was an ROTC Cadet. I borrowed a large tarp from the school and spread it out. I had all of my classmates stand on it and fully flip it over without using their hands or touching the snowy ground and timed them. They did a decent job, but the exercise really stressed the importance of communication as for a majority of the time half the group was confused and didn’t know how far the others had progressed in flipping the tarp over or what they could do to help.
One of the german games were my favorite, One team threw an object and then had to huddle in a circle while one person ran around them as many times as they could while the other team would run to the object and form a line passing over and under until it got to the last person who would throw and the other team would hurry after the ball. The process looped like that and I think it was a really great exercise because every teammate was important, it was active and kept everyone warm and required a lot of coordination and communication. I’ll definitely be taking that exercise back with me.
I also really liked the Icelandic game where we grabbed three different colored candies and all had to take turns sharing random things that the colors represented like happiest memory, most embarrassing moment, etc. It was really good for bringing the group together and allowing everyone to get to know each other a little more. The downside was that it took a long time and with the rain and snow everyone got cold pretty quickly.
Afterwards it started to get dark and we all broke off into our tent groups to participate in a cook-off. It was my first time using the cooker and I was really scared when trying to light the fuel that flames would come up and burn my hand so one of the others in my group had to do it. Once we got it going I had some trouble controlling the level of the flame, the level of heat kept being either too high or too low to cook our food but eventually I got the hang of it.
The goal was to create the best dish. I thought we had it in the bag with our shishkabobs but while we were cooking them we realized the difficult with cooking them on the cookers. It didn’t cook at the same pace and by the time we cooked and skewered everything, they got cold on the sticks from the wind and rain. I think we receive the lowest score on the contest but we definitely deserved it. They gave us a 5 out of 10 but we probably should have gotten a 4. The chicken I marinated the night before cooked wonderfully though and every loved it. The winning dish was of couscous and salmon because it had carbs to re-energize us and the water in the couscous was good to help re-hydrate us. The salmon was good protein and there were vegetables in the couscous too which made it even healthier. Now I know that for my trips I should bring something that takes water to cook like soup, pasta or couscous so I can regain water in another way instead of just drinking a few liters.
The storm kitchen has two pots, 1 pan and a water kettle so a lot of dishes can be made this way. If you wanted to make a nice 3 course meal you could heat up water in the kettle and pour some in a bowl and add a soup packet to make a nice starter. Then for the main course you could cook up some chicken on the pan and then boil some water in the pot to cook pasta in. Add in some pasta sauce and chop up some broccoli and you have some good chicken alfredo. For dessert you can heat up water in the smaller pan and make yourself some nice chocolate pudding to finish up the meal. DELICIOUS…and easy to pack and make.
After dinner most of us went to bed. I was pretty cold from the rain and snow and my boots were soaked through from all the slush. It was a cold night and my first time using my sleeping mat that my boss let me bring and I wanted to see how it would work. Even though I was wearing lots of layers I still ended up feeling pretty cold, mostly my butt always felt cold. The next morning when I awoke I realized that my whole sleeping bag was pretty wet for whatever reason. I know the tent didn’t leak even though it had rained so I realized that it must have been condensation. I brought a bivy bag but didn’t use it because I didn’t think I needed it in the tent. I should have used it.
While cleaning up in preparation to leave I realized that I didn’t have any bags to put all of my trash in from cooking the previous night, which really sucked. So I just grabbed everything in my hands and walked of to a convenient trash can on the opposite side of the clearing. Next time I know I won’t be so lucky so I’ll definitely bring a spare plastic bag to put unwanted or used stuff in.
All in all it was a great trip and gave me experience with using the cooker, taught me what food to properly prepare and make for the season and made me realized what I needed to do differently on the next trip we take.