Just after our Easter holidays we went on our Mountain Safety Field Trip from 3rd to 6th of April. The aim of this trip was to build a snow hole, survive in the snow and prove our improved cross-country-skiing technique with a heavy backpack. For this trip our class got divided in two smaller groups and within these groups we divided into three even smaller groups with four students. I was in a group with Linda, Lilla and Bogi.
Beforehand we arranged different tasks for each in the group. We decided to prepare the breakfast and the dinner together. Therefore I was responsible for breakfast and I prepared porridge with cinnamon, nuts, dried fruits and seeds. Linda arranged two dinners with rice, lentils and vegetables and Bogi prepared one dinner with rice noodles, vegetables and tomato sauce. Lilla brought red spirit and I brought the storm kitchen and a big tarp (to put under our foam mats for the sleeping area in the snow hole) for our group.
On the first day we all met in the morning at Trollaktiv in Evje and started driving to Berdalen together. From Berdalen we started skiing to the hut Berdalsbu six kilometers out of Berdalen. The sight was quite bad that it was hard to see the skiing track. It was a little bit snowing and windy the whole day. My group was with Tim this day and we exercised our navigation skills with the map and compass. Always one of us had to lead the whole group to a specific point Tim showed us on the map before. With these weather conditions and the snowy landscape it was difficult to hit the right spot. Most of the time we had to do compass bearing as it wasn’t possible to orientate on any natural feature. This was a great practice for me and even after all the navigation exercise I had on the self organize field trips I realized again how hard navigation can become when the weather conditions aren’t the best. When we arrived at Berdalsbu our group settled down in the smaller hut of the two DNT huts there. We as a group worked together really got. Some of us were responsible of getting snow for melting it into drinking and cooking water, others started the fire and got logs and the rest took care about the cleaning of the hut.
After having a good sleep in the hut our plan for the second day was to do a little ski tour and to search for a good snow holing spot (overhanging deep snow on a hill at lee-wind side) in the morning and to build our own snow hole in the afternoon. Due to the bad snow conditions for skiing (wasn’t possible to get the right wax on the skis and to get any grip even not with red or purple; I still had a little bit of clisters on my skis from my trips over Easter that helped me a lot) we decided after a bit of skiing to skip the ski tour and start the snow hole building straight away. After we picked up our big backpacks from the hut, we went back to the spot we choose for building a snow hole which is suitable for four people. We decided to start digging a tunnel (entrance) into the snow from two sides and then digged out an interior in the middle of the two tunnels which is high enough to sit up in and big enough for four people to sleep at. We arched the roof to make it more stable and poked a ventilation hole in it with the avalanche probe. Furthermore we build up a little area next to the sleeping area for cooking and digged in some shelves for personal belongings, cooking equipment and candles to make the snow cave more comfortable. One of the entrances we covered up completely with snow blogs we sawed out the snow earlier and the other entrance we covered up until it was lower than our sleeping spot. We always were working together in pairs. At one tunnel Linda and Lila were digging and on the other tunnel Bogi and me. We worked together really good and there were no social loafing at all in our group. All in all it took us around five hours to finish our snow hole. It was hard work but we were lucky with the weather and after a while the sun was even coming out that we didn’t get cold although our clothes got wet all over. After finishing the snow hole Sarah and me built up a little toilet area for our group that we didn’t leave our “tracks” everywhere after leaving the snow hole area again.
After having a good night sleep in our cozy little snow cave we did avalanche training in the morning. There I learned and practiced a lot which I can use very well for my next ski tours in the upcoming winter. First we covered each other up with snow that everybody can get an imagination on how it feels to be caught by an avalanche. I was surprised about how good you can hear the people searching for you but that they can’t hear you at all even if you are screaming. Then we made a proper snow profile and tested it with a skier on top. There we found out that the avalanche risk is high at the moment and it would be really dangerous to do a ski tour in this area at steeper hills. After this we tried to find a hidden backpack only by using the probes under five minutes. We couldn’t make it in time but after seven minutes we managed to get the backpack digged out of the snow. This remembered me again how important it is to take receivers with you when you go to Alpine areas on a ski tour through steeper terrain. After lunch we build a little “playing area” with four different stages (slalom, bumps, orgel tramp and kickers). After building them we had 20 minutes at each stage to try them out and then we had to nominate the two best persons of our group for each stage to make a competition against the other groups. This gave me a few ideas how to create a nice playground for example for school trips with my students. In summary it was an extremely educative day for me and I really enjoyed it.
Friday was a really sunny day and because it was snowing the whole night the conditions for skiing were perfect. We had the opportunity to choose between to ski tours. One group did a peak tour up a mountain and the other skied in mostly flat area. I went with Tim as a leader up the peak. One of us always had to navigate the group to a specific spot Tim gave us before. The snow was perfect and we had really nice powder on the downhill. This was a fun day and I loved the downhill skiing parts of this tour. We arrived around three at our cars in Berdalen and the others started their way back to Kristiansand. Laura and I went up to Hovden for one more day of downhill skiing.
All in all I was really happy with my small group as we functioned very well as a group and helped each other whenever it was necessary. The whole trip was a great experience for me and I had a pleasant and fun time in our little snow cave.