On Tuesday morning I was rushing towards the bus station where we (Jochen, Stephen, Roman, Petr and me) agreed to meet at 8.30. With my ski shoes on it took me five minutes to develop a blister on my left foot – “Good start” I thought. But I got there in time but no one was at the bus station, than I noticed that Roman and Ste were already boarding the bus, without a second thought I followed them thinking that Petr and Jochen were inside. I put my skis and backpack in a storage area of the bus, then I asked the bus driver for the same ticket as Ste and Roman bought. I didn’t knew what kind of tickets they had, but turned out it was the cheapest option. Only when I got on the bus I realized that Jochen and Petr were still missing. It made us a bit nervous because the bus was about to leave and we couldn’t contact them – next time we need to address this issue.

Turned out they were waiting for us til the last minute inside the bus station. Relieved we took off. Bus ride took a lot of time, half of it I’ve spent half sleeping or at least trying to. The funny thing was that in Kristiansand there was not a single snowflake to be seen and here after half an hour drive there were plenty of snow. After three and a half hour journey we found ourselves in Hovden. Bus station provided us a cozy shelter for lunch and quick reality check – we were not able to reach Berdalsbu cabin today – it was already an afternoon and distances in reality are bigger than it seems on paper. So we adjusted our plan and decided to go for Tjoernbrotbu cabin which was significantly closer.

First we had to find the way out of Hovden into the mountains and winter tracks and this was also easier said than done, because we had no knowledge about this town nor a detailed map for these streets. Despite this we just headed up the main street where we found some smaller roads leading upward. There we had to ask locals for directions, they also recommended us to reconsider our plans because the weather conditions were quite dangerous today. It seemed that wind and snowing was quite reasonable but soon we realized how did a snow storm looked like. When we got higher into the mountains we decided to head back to “safety” – in this “white darkness” we almost couldn’t see the next pole that marked our track and if we lost sight of it that would have been tricky finding our way to the cabin, not to mention that the distance was also great. Not taking risk to get lost in the mountains we headed back for Hovden. The snow storm was so intense that we couldn’t see how high we climbed up – there was no horizon, ground blended up with the sky making all our surroundings a blank white wall. As we skied down we gained speed – the terrain descended fast and we didn’t realized this on the way up because of poor visibility. That was one hour up and 10 minutes down – this summed up our first day expedition.

By the time we were down in Hovden again the sky cleared out and even the sun came out, but it was a bit too late and the weather was too unpredictable to head back because we already lost too much time. We had to look where to spend a night here. After wandering around the Hovden: observing ski center, spending an hour in a local café

we were still considering overnight options. Each of us had different ideas, I personally wanted to continue the trip to the cabin even in the dark and spend a night in a snow hole if necessary, the only problem was that I didn’t brought a sleeping mat and a bivy bag, what I had was a huge tarp in my backpack. In the end, because the bus station was locked for the night and we could spend a night there we found a nice and cozy apartment for 900kr (only 180kr each). Soon this apartment was filled with aroma of food and… well… farting, because obviously nobody tried to hide their impact on Global Warming…

Next morning we got up at 7.00 with intention To Make It Right today – we were to reach Berdalsbucabin. We left our apartment around 8.30, found the track that we had abandoned yesterday. The tracks were completely covered by snow (yesterday there was a fresh made cross-country skiing track).  Not far up we spotted a snow hole, we checked if people inside were alright, turned out – they were.

Sun shined on us today, it was such a difference from yesterday. Now we could see this beautiful landscape far in every direction. Enjoying this weather we reached the point where we had to turn around yesterday, here we had quick sip of our thermoses and continued our journey. Turned out that distances are much bigger than in our imagination, and the white landscape is not so easy to navigate. I really liked the challenge of being a navigator today, because it was so different from orienteering in woods where I am used to navigate. Our direction judgments didn’t led us astray today.

We rarely stopped for a brake, as far as I remember we haven’t took more than three or four 10-15 minute brakes during our 9 hour ski trip. We had to keep up the pace or we wouldn’t have reached Berdalsbu cabin in the daylight and that was because carrying rug sacks with full equipment slowed us down… very – there were countless Norwegian skiers that passed us like we were not moving at all (of course they didn’t had backpacks like ours). That’s funny, because we thought of ourselves as good and fast skiers – another reality check. Soon we left the track and crossed directly through a huge open area to reach another marked path that led to Berdalsbu (the tracks that we followed from Hovden led to Tjoernbrotbu cabin).

When we completed 2/3 of the distance we split in two groups: Jochen suggested a more challenging but more interesting route alternative so I joined him because I got a bit bored from this flat route marked by poles. After exchanging numbers, in case of emergency Roman, Stephen and Petr continued their way following the winter path. Me and Jochen set off to find and follow the summer path which lead through higher altitude and which was covered in deep snow – there were no markings on this one. Our road was indeed more difficult and we had to choose our path wisely through mountains to avoid avalanche risk, there were some slopes that threatened to swallow anyone who would dare to cross near it. We didn’t take any unnecessary risks so we completed our chosen path without any trouble. What we encountered on our way was steep uphill but on the top hard work paid off – the sight was amazing. A huge valley of Otra river opened up beneath us and as today the sun was bright this panorama almost took a breath away.

From the spot that we were, we picked up a point in the horizon where in our opinion should have been a mountain pass to Berdalsbu. First we had to find the way out the high ground that we were on. After some time we managed to ski down this slope and headed for that spot that we had picked up earlier (we also seen some small dots in that spot – those were people crossing – this confirmed that we were in fact heading to the right place). After an hour we reached this mountain pass where we reunited with the rest of our group.

 

From there we skied down to the cabin and this was a frustrating part for some of us, because we were tired and our downhill technique went straight through the window because of that. Also a lot of trees on our way didn’t help us either. Luckily I managed to ski down without diving into snow with my head, some of us weren’t so lucky.

We reached Berdalsbuin the golden hour –

sky and mountains were filled with this beautiful color. Took some memorable pictures and went inside to take a rest. We had to share the cabin with fellow Norwegian travelers and it was really nice because they were sociable and helpful, any question I had about the cabin and its policy I’ve got an answer from them: e.g. some aspects on how to pay for the cabin and food supplies. They warned us about the weather forecast for tomorrow – there was going to be a storm once again.

The only way to get some water for cooking was to melt snow and witnessed for ourselves that it takes a lot of snow to get enough water.

We spent our evening in the candle light again getting to know each other better by chatting. I really love this way of socializing because it strengthens our bonds than any pub or a nightclub (I am not a fan of those), here we are brought by shared experience, helping out each other and building trust.

In the morning we said goodbye to our new roommates, before they left we got the information about bus schedules: Turned out there was only one bus heading towards Kristiansand and it departs from Hovden at 15.30. We could have stayed in the cabin for a bit longer, but the storm was to come soon and we didn’t want to take any risks so we moved out around 10.30. I took as less than an hour to get down from the mountains following a snow mobile track. We reached the main road, took off our skis and our journey was over.

Now we had to wait for the bus. Petr and Jochen decided to hitch hike because they already had paid too much for tickets on the way here. We took their skis and caught a 12.00 bus to Hovden, there we spent three hours playing cards in the same café as Tuesday and waiting for the bus back home.

When we got back to Kristiansand I had a feeling as if I got back to the real world from Narnia or something, because here was no snow and only rain while in Hovden there were at least a layer of two meters.

Evalution:

Planning:

-Our primary goals (to do around 70-80 km in three days) were too ambitious even in perfect conditions.

-Only Jochen did the planning, we just joined him.

-We didn’t spoke in person much before the trip so we miscalculated who should take such equipment like gas adapter, gas or cooking stoves. We also took one avalanche probe more than we needed. Some of us, including me, forgot a sleeping mat and a bivy bag for emergency situations although we planned to sleep in cabins.

 

Group processes:

-We didn’t start as a new group, but we got to know each other better. We discovered some tendencies in our colleagues that we weren’t aware before: e.g. becoming grumpy when things are not according to plan.

-We had a similar skiing skills (that was the factor according which Jochen chose people for this trip)

-First time to see people grumpy, how they are acting when they are tired.

-Positive result at the end – we really got to know each other more because of the shared adventure and stories that we told in the evenings.

Execution of the trip:

-Bad weather messed up our plans completely, we had to turn around on our way to the hut and go back to Hovden on the first day.

-We had to rent an apartment in Hovden for the first night (this was not even in a plan B).

-We changed the distance and only did 1/3 of our original plan because of the weather conditions and slow traveling with heavy backpacks.

Challenges:

-As I have mentioned above – navigation in the winter is quite a challenge because there are just contour lines on the map and when the weather is horrible there is a little help from those.

-The next challenge was to make quick decisions, finding an agreement between all group members (to many ideas and to less initiative). It was mainly because an experienced person was missing.

– Everyone had their own vision about this trip – we split of the group one time for taking a route with more impressive sights and challenging terrain.

– We found that we had different borders of our comfort zones, different levels of awareness for avalanches and distance to the hut.

Learning outcomes:

-We found out our own abilities at skiing.

-We gained a lot of experience on skiing with full gear and navigating in mountains during winter period.

-We had good emergency plan

-We were proud on the distance we completed.

-We did not encountered lack of food.

-Next time we are going to:

v  Communicate better before the trip,

v  Tape our feet before blisters are there,

v  Take a right amount of equipment: Roman took too much stuff and Petr too little.

v  Reach decisions faster.

v  Check bus prices and schedules better.