{"id":146,"date":"2015-04-06T17:13:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T16:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/?page_id=146"},"modified":"2015-06-08T13:22:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T12:22:42","slug":"mountain-safety-snow-hole-trip","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/blog\/march\/mountain-safety-snow-hole-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Safety Snow Hole Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We started our trip in Hovden not too far from the ski center we were skiing at the weekend before.\u00a0 Moritz and I took his van to the starting location while the others waited for a shuttle to take them to us.\u00a0 There are 22 internationals all together in our program and we were divided into two groups.\u00a0 One group was with Tim and the other group was with Len.\u00a0 I was in Tim\u2019s group which I was pretty happy about since he is a very patient and nice guy, and I definitely need someone to be patient with me when I am on skis.<\/p>\n

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Our DNT hut<\/p><\/div>\n

The first day we skied about 7km before we reached the hut.\u00a0 We skied pretty slowly and just practiced on orienteering, map reading skills, and every once in a while Tim would stop us and teach us something about the animal tracks nearby.\u00a0 Once we made it to the hut we took our skis off and went inside to have lunch.\u00a0 We had about an hour break before Tim told us that we were going to go scout out the area and look for a good place to build our snow holes.\u00a0 Our instructions were to find an area at least 3m deep and long that we could build our snow hole in.\u00a0 Our group went to the East and took our avalanche probe to check a few spots but we keep hitting the ground with the probe or our spot wouldn\u2019t be high enough.\u00a0 We wanted a high area to build the snow hole so that the snow removal process would be smooth when digging out the hole.\u00a0 When we arrived back at the hut we ate dinner and lite the candles while we all sat around and talked.<\/p>\n

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Tim measuring the snow with an avalanche probe, checking for good snow hole conditions<\/p><\/div>\n

When morning came it was time to go out and build our snow holes!\u00a0 Since this mountain safety trip was right after our snowboarding trip it meant my wrists were really score and I was unable to do simple tasks such as wax my skis, pick up my backpack, open my water bottle, put my sleeping bag away, and all in all just do simple tasks.<\/p>\n

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Packing our home down<\/p><\/div>\n

So when building the snow hole it was also pretty hard for me to dig any snow, which meant I was a full time debris removal.\u00a0 I felt bad that I could not do as much work as the others but I was still happy that there was a little that I could do.<\/p>\n

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6 people to help form our Sig Igloo<\/p><\/div>\n

My group made a Sig Igloo which consisted of digging a 5ft hole, with a 3ft radius.\u00a0 Then we put 6 people in an emergency bivouac in the hole with their water proofs on and had them get into a huddle with their backs facing out.\u00a0 While they were standing in the hole the rest of the group\u2019s job was to throw snow as fast as they could on top of the huddle and try to create a roof for the snow hole.\u00a0 There was a tunnel dug out that met up with the hole we put the huddle in; this way the guys could escape when necessary.\u00a0 My job was to communicate with the guys in the hole to make sure they were okay.\u00a0 The first time I tried to talk to them I was in the tunnel yelling at them and didn\u2019t get any response so I crawled all the way in so I was right at their feet to tell them to stop moving and then they finally heard me.\u00a0 It surprised me how sound proof the snow hole really was.\u00a0 It took about 10min before the roof was compacted together and we started removing one man out at a time.<\/p>\n

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Katja carrying a snow block to block the front dor<\/p><\/div>\n

By the end of the day our group had built two snow holes, one sig igloo, one igloo, and a fire pit.\u00a0 It felt like I was in a little snow village.\u00a0 Once everything was done we made our fire and cooked our dinner.\u00a0 Unfortunately when Ste and Roman dug our fire pit they didn\u2019t noticed till they were 3 ft in that they were digging on top of a rock that was slanting down.\u00a0 This meant our fire slanted down to one side of the rock and this also \u00a0meant when we sat around the fire and tried to use the rock for support to stand up or sit down we slipped into the fire. I think 5 of us fell into the fire that night.<\/p>\n

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Our home<\/p><\/div>\n

When morning came our snow hole tunnel was almost completely full of snow from the night because it had snowed.<\/p>\n

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Evening smoky fire<\/p><\/div>\n

So it was a good thing we slept with our shovels on us so we could dig ourselves out easier.\u00a0 That day we were supposed to be ready to go at 9am but our group wasn\u2019t ready to go till 9:30am.\u00a0 We had a little chat later about why it took us so long to get ready and how it can affect the whole group if other people are ready to go but can\u2019t leave because the rest of the group is not ready and then they get cold.\u00a0 We should have cooked our breakfast in the snow hole right when we woke up instead of going outside to cook with other people.<\/p>\n

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Lunch in our emergency shelter<\/p><\/div>\n

That day we went on a short tour which was blizzard conditions so it was pretty hard to navigate to say the least.\u00a0 Then we took a break inside an emergency bivouac which was really hard to fit 12 people under one shelter.\u00a0 It was really warm in the shelter but people were pretty fussy because there was not much room.\u00a0 We went back down the valley which was a pretty nice downhill and then Tim took a break to show us what a corneous looked like and he even had us ski off of one.\u00a0 Everyone nearly fell, I think there was only one other person besides Tim that didn\u2019t fall.CIMG1520<\/a><\/p>\n

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Lunch break on the last day<\/p><\/div>\n

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We had no campfire this evening because the blizzard conditions were so bad.\u00a0 I think I stayed in the snow hole for 13hrs when we got back.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty good thing I am good at holding the toilet for so long.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to take care of yourself in winter conditions, for example, your body doesn\u2019t crave water when it\u2019s cold out so it\u2019s easy to forget to drink water, and it\u2019s annoying to go to the toilet so I never really wanted to drink water; not to mention that my wrists hurt so bad that any time I wanted a drink of water I had to ask someone to open my bottle for me.<\/p>\n

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Winter navigation with our maps<\/p><\/div>\n

The last day of this trip consisted of digging an emergency shelter that we would spend the night in.\u00a0 These shelters are only used when you are just trying to survive the night.\u00a0 Tim told us that you do not really sleep much when you\u2019re in a shelter, but it is mostly just nodding on and off throughout the night, just trying to stay warm.\u00a0 So needless to say our group was not too thrilled about making the shelters and sleeping in them.\u00a0 Wytse and I decided that we were going to build a tunnel between the two of ours so we could sleep together!\u00a0 He gave us 20min to dig and since my wrists hurt pretty bad I had a pretty poor shelter dug out.\u00a0 We went around to everyone\u2019s shelters and said who would survive the night and let\u2019s just say I died.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the end of digging out our shelters Tim told us that we would not be spending the night in the shelters but we would have a bus waiting for us where we started the trip and we would ski out today.\u00a0 Needless to say we were pretty happy campers with that news.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard work sleeping in a snow hole for two nights and skiing through the day.\u00a0 It\u2019s challenging to keep your clothes dry and take care of yourself so you are healthy for the following day.<\/p>\n

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Loading up the skis to go home:)<\/p><\/div>\n

This trip was especially challenging for me because my wrists were so nonfunctional, I relied on the help of my friends more than I\u2019ve ever had to before.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t wax my skis so Jais waxed my skis for me two days in a row and I didn\u2019t even ask her, which was unbelievably helpful and so nice of her to do for me.\u00a0 Jannis had some cool anti-inflammatory cream he would put on my wrist almost every night and morning which was so sweet of him to use so much of it on me.\u00a0 I was also really lucky to have Wytse in my group because he would help me put my sleeping bag away and push down my dry bags, anytime we packed up, and I don\u2019t think I could’ve packed without him.\u00a0 I think it was good for me to rely on my friends because it showed me what good of friends I really have, it taught me to ask for help more often, and it made me more thankful every day for the function I have in my wrists when they don\u2019t hurt.\u00a0 All in all it was a good trip, a lot of character building and some great experiences that can\u2019t be forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We started our trip in Hovden not too far from the ski center we were skiing at the weekend before.\u00a0 Moritz and I took his van to the starting location while the others waited for a shuttle to take them … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":445,"parent":248,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/146\/revisions\/455"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.uia.no\/sharow14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}