After considering to take tents and then to even change the location for our mountain safety field trip due to the lack of snow we ended up travelling to Ljosland which is located not even 2 hours by car  from Kristiansand northwest of Evje. This area for the same altitude tends to get more snow than areas like Hovden due to it’s location.
From our car park we had planned a 8km-route to our first night-stay in Lakenstova hut. In perfect sunny weather we took short legs as groupleaders using the obvious mountain line to our north, the shape of the river and some skiing track to navigate. In conditions like these with great visibilities I found it very usefull to use distant peaks in opposing directions combined with a feature close to myself (track, riverjunction, knoll etc.) to quickly locate quite an exact location.
On the last bit on that day we had to cross a huge lake that we crossed with sufficient space between us as it had been plus degrees for a couple of days. If in great doubt of the stability of the ice and no other easy way having a jump on the ice to test the stability close to the side of the lake can be an option as we learned later.
When crossing a lake in bad visibility on a bearing another option is to send one person approx. 50m in front keeping him/her on the bearing. Let the person stop, follow up and send out the next on the bearing to make sure to get across the lake exactly on the right bearing. Closing your ice and trying to make 100 steps forward already shows that almost nobody will be able to keep a straight line without having something in front them to aim for.
In slight plus degrees red wax started working well after about half an hour in. Gives question to Lens theory of the wax not working right away but after a while.
After settling in the hut our group of 8 set out to explore the area and search for a snowhole spot for the next two nights. All of us didn’t take our shovels and probes which was very silly as you should always carry them in the mountains in winter.
Since the wind had blown easterly most of the past weeks as identifiable by snowdrifts we looked out and found a huge corness that had formed on the southwesterly side of a smaller peak. After walking up from the bottom we probed into the snow with our 3m probe. Horizontally, diagonally and vertically probing gave us certainty that there was enough snow to build 4 or even more snowholes next to each other. Stoked about that we returned to the hut to have an early night and prepare for the next day.

The next day our plan was to navigate east up a valley, north to a lake and back around a small mountain range to come back down a southerly slope that Tims group had skied down the day before. Not everybody was keen to get involved in the route planning the night before. Even though we did quite a good job navigating outside in good conditions this made it much more difficult. Changing legs and agreeing on where we are on the map and where we want to go next took longer while lots of it could have also been done beforehand in a warm hut. This has even further encouraged me how important it is to plan ahead in detail when out with a group of 8 that is not all too experienced in the environment and skills. This of course also includes myself and would be a different story when on a well planned duo expedition while the principle stays.
Out on this daytour we also learned how to resection in the winter environment on a good day. Picking two or even three easily identifiable peaks around us that we could also see on the map we ended up with three bearings and three imaginary lines that located us in a sector of about 30x30m. Descending back to the hut with somewhat icy conditions on some of the slopes we made use of the contouring along which worked very safe and sound. Another point to notice for our daytour is that, even if it means that everybody has to take their big pack, everybody should pack it as a daypack and carry it other than having 3-4 big bags for 8 people and swapping them. The aim of daytouring is a light pack and the safety also lays in having shovel and probe on you and not on the back of your mate. After a warm up and lunch in the hut we went out with our packed bags to start digging our snowhole.

Digging the snowhole took us about 4-5 hours and following I will sum up the most important learning outcomes:
– even though all groups dug into one big snow bench there was different layers of snow. While my group was able to cut and saw out huge blocks of ice the group a lot further up the bench was working mostly with wet snow and had difficulties getting proper blocks out.
– using the tarp as soon as benches have been partly dug out is very effective to get lots of snow out at the same time. Also keeping spot in front of the entrance lower than the snowcave ground and free of snow will ensure an easy drag out of the tarp.
– when shaping the mushroomshaped roof try to start small because as soon as you have dug in too far on any side you have to make everything much bigger to succeed with the no-drip-ceiling.
– if possible don’t just start building a good way up the snowbench. If there is a lot of snow feel free to leave more than a meter of snow above your ceiling. Even though the sinking of the snowholes that we experienced was mostly due to the constant temperatures above zero more snow above in my opinion would have made it harder for the room to sink down as a whole. The snowwholes further up the bench that has 2-3m snow above the ceiling had much less problems of a sinking ceiling than us that only had <1m above our heads. While their roof sunk an acceptable amount of roughly 10cm (breathing, compressing, metamorphose of snow etc.) ours had gone down about 25cm at the weakest point.

Setting up camp in the snowhole was rather comfortable and luxurious with tarp and full sleeping kit and allowed for a good nights sleep. On the next day we set of with daypacks on a big tour peaking two of the peaks we had planned for our route formerly. Since the weather was between 3-7 degrees we had to use Klister for the first time which did a good job tacking up icy slopes. Especially when going up these slopes I remembered Tims advice from the basic ski course and chose my own (mostly flatter) tacking line than the rest of the group. This prolonged my skiing distance but made it much less enduring and sweaty while also ensuring a good skiing technique without having to (half-)hering-bone up a hill. On winter navigation we repeated resectioning and skiing on a bearing which was very good practice showing improvements in winter navigation. Getting more comfortable on skis we traversed and contoured down quite steep faces using our kickturns. Even though we were going quite slow and visibility was good while descending one of us went over a little corness that was tough to see. It shows how careful we have to be especially if visibility goes poor. In a prolonged afternoon break Len gave us another shot on probing a buried person to see the difference between probing a rock or a limb, that feels much softer and gives way when hitting it with the probe. Furthermore we dug a snowprofile to show how to identify weak layers of snow and simulated an avalanche set-off by digging out and weakening a snowplatform and having a skier create a rather big impact on top of it.

After a long daytour of skiing we returned to our snowholes. Not very surprised we had to realize, that our snowholes roof had sunk down another 30 cm over only 8 hours. This as explained above was mostly due to the hot temperatures but in my opinion has also got to do with the roof thickness and sun exposure. This drastic sinking of the roof ment that two of four snowholes would probably keep sinking throughout the night. Since there wasn’t another 30cm to lay on the bench we had to get our stuff out and circled all together to make an emergency plan. Luckily the weather was warm enough to just have a chat outside. In bad weather we might have had to seek shelter to have this “emergency meeting”. After some back and forth we as a group decided that having some sleeping in their snowholes and some having to build an emergency shelter was kind of unfair so we decided to bring forward the night of the emergency shelter and all dig in to the snow as we had about 2 1/2 hours of daylight left which was plenty. Quickly we got to work and fortunately didn’t get a 30min cap as anounced before probably due to the strenuous skiing day. Justin and me decided to dig a narrow channel that was max. 2 metres deep and 2 metres long to then dig in either side near the ground to have a bench just big enough for two people. After about 2 hours of digging we were done and after a quick dinner settled into our emergency shelters. We had built a narrow staircase and used two skis and four skipoles covered by tarp and snowblocks as a roof. Here we could have done a tidier job if we had taken more time. Down in the emergency shelter we had dug kind of a half-mushroom-shaped roof to both sides about 60cm high that left enough room tightly undress and sleep comfortable on all sides. We woke up after a very sound sleep without drips and the roof hadn’t sunk a bit. Obviously the cave wasn’t huge to allow the roof to sink too much but I reckon building deep and having a thick roof definitely improves the stability of any snowhole if there is enough snow for that. Some of the others had experienced drips (from the tarp) (plus degrees) or a sunken roof (same shape as ours + coldpit + less roof thickness) which resulted in wet sleeping bag and equipment. Due to that we decided together that staying another night even if just uncomfortable for some was not going to happen and prepared to cut our trip short one night to have one last skitouring day with a full pack back to the car park. We navigated part of our originally planned route alternating leaders in pairs of two doing quite a good job on navigation. Being the group leader in this kind of group I found it especially hard to make everybody realistically adjust to the situation and follow the leader. It was hard to authentically be the leader and navigating the group when sometimes others would just go in front of the leader when the track was obvious. It was also hard to identify when the group needed a break as people themselves sometimes realised too late when in the wind or in the middle of a descend. These scenarios could partly be avoided by finding a consensus about breaking times and re-checking with the group ever so often if/when somebody needs rest, drink, food. I also am of the opinion that when leading a proper group in the outdoors the natural respect for the guide and leader would help the whole situation.

Side note: Digging snowholes in waterproofs is top knotch, spare gloves are very much needed afterwards
In terms of food: good amount of porridge, approx. 3 muesli bars and 2 peanutbutter-sandwiches, proper warm dinner. Make lunch for one or more days in advance if there is no other chance to prepare it comfortably. Saves time and energy and in much worse weather maybe even lives.

All in all the mountain safety field trip was a very interesting and informative time with a lot of learning outcomes. Staying hydrated and never hungry definitely helped to tackle all the challenges out there, keeping a cool head and feeling fit and good 24/7. The right amount of clothing (mostly 2-3 layers) also helped to almost never feel cold and reserve on energy. If not already before this field trip gave me the security to go out into the mountains in winter and safely navigate on a fair-weather day in skiable terrain. For navigating in very bad weather and more challenging terrain we also lay down some basics but that would need some more practice.