On Tuesday the 3rd to the 6th of April 2018 our International Outdoor Education class took part in our final winter ski trip. This was the final test after having spent several previous trips adding weight to our rucksacks and gradually increasing technical demand and distance all preparation for this our final ski trip. I did not know what to expect of this trip after it having been built up so much from the beginning of the semester. Prior to leaving I was concerned I might struggle after having gone almost a month without skiing straight into what was suppose the be our most challenging winter trip yet.
The first day was seemed to be quite easy with just a short 6km ski in to the DNT hut where we planned to spend our first night at Berdlasbu. However, when we began to ski we soon realised that the snow conditions where not what we had become used to over the winter period. The conditions were significantly warmer, and the first stretch proved to be a little more difficult than expected to get ski’s to grip correctly. I had to stop around a kilometre in to the journey and apply a softer wax which seemed to help a little. As we moved towards the hut Tim gave us each a short leg of navigation. It didn’t take long to realise a month without skiing had left us out of practice with navigating in winter conditions. Personally, I found it to be quite challenging in some sections to read the snow-covered terrain as many features where far less obvious. However, I feel it was a good wake up call for areas of weakness in my own navigation as I over shot my target by about 100m. Tim had several useful tips and techniques which I will use in the future when navigating in this type of terrain, such as keeping legs shorter and using time as a gauge of your distance when features are sparse or less obvious. Towards the end of the day the weather conditions became worse and Tim took a more Autocratic role navigating us the final section in to the huts where we spent our first night each group in their own hut.
The next morning, we woke up with the intention of going for a short ski tour until around lunch time to find an ideal location for our snow holes. However, our plans changed as the weather became warmer and the snow conditions even less favourable than the previous day. We attempted a short tour as one big group each person struggling to climb even small inclines with red wax on. We eventually decided it was pointless to continue trying to tour and settled on a location for our snow holes just a few hundred metres from the huts. We where quite fortunate to be able to find a location large enough for all 6 snow holes. Tim and Sindra discussed briefly with us the criteria for our snow holes and gave us some design suggestions.
Marijn, Jed Will and I decided to make our snow hole with two entries and a four-person sleeping platform in the middle. We worked in pairs Marijn and I working on one entrance and Will and Jed on the other. We used a rotation to keep working as much as possible one person in the pair would do the hard work and dig into the hill side whilst the other cleared out the loose snow from behind. Eventually the snow started to become too hard and we had to use the snow saws to help us to move blocks of ice. This also proved to be useful later on when making our sleeping platform as well as for collecting large blocks for ceiling our entrance. The snow hole took around 5 hours in total, when we finished we where all exhausted, but it was satisfying to be able to look at what we had achieved. When we were finished digging our snow hole we where left with two entrances tall enough to stand in and a four-man sleeping platform in the middle. Jed and Will continued to add to the snow hole making storage shelves and a cooking area to make it more liveable whilst Marijn and I got to work using the large block we had got out to seal the entrance.
The first night in the snow hole was one of the best sleeps I had on the winter trips, it was much warmer, and we had a lot more space that on previous trips where we had slept in tents. The next morning our snow hole had sunk a little from cooking inside the snow hole but there was still plenty of room for us to move around. After eating breakfast and a few small adjustments to out snow hole we waxed out ski’s and set out in our two groups with the intention of going on a day tour. However the snow conditions where still poor so instead Tim and Sindra took us a short way from the snow holes and we learnt about avalanche danger and how to take snow profile. Our group had the opportunity to bury each other in the snow to simulate what is is like to be buried in an avalanche. It was quite terrifying to experience the pressure of snow just half a meter under and how you can hear everything from the surface but are un able to communicate anything back. It was also interesting to be able to dig our snow profile and to learn the about different layers warning signs to look for in high risk avalanche areas.
Later that afternoon the ski conditions where still poor so we found an area close to our snow holes and the cabins to make a ski lek (ski play). We stayed in our two groups and created two activities each. Sindra’s group made ski jump and the organ skis and Tim’s group made slalom ski course and a down hill track with bumps. Each group tested their activity then we each split into groups of five or six to test out each of the activities. Once we had tested each of the activities we nominated a participant from our group for a competition in each activity. It is safe to say that these ski activities confirmed for everyone that Aussies are not born to ski, Jed breaking his ski and me almost breaking my nose which although it was painful it was nice to see Tim concerned and know he does actually care about us.

After we finished our ski lek we went into the cabin for a brief of what our final day would involve. Tim broke the news to us early that we would be going back Friday and did not have to spend the following night in out emergency shelters. We then spent our final night in our slowly sinking snowhole. The next morning, we awoke to Aaron and Sam already starting to partly cave in our snow hole, the rest of us woke up packed our things and quickly joined them destroying all the snow holes. We went up to meet Tim and Sindra at the huts and spit into two groups each of us taking short legs of navigation back to the bus. This was a good opportunity to take on Tim’s feedback from the first day and practice Navigation in winter conditions. I feel I was able to improve navigation by using his tips but still have a lot of areas to improve upon when navigating in winter conditions. Aside from this the weather and snow conditions where the best they had been all week so we where able to go on a long tour through the mountains. Skiing down hill through all the trees was the perfect way to finish up our winter trips.
On the whole the snow hole trip was the perfect way to finish up on all our winter trips. It gave opportunity to put into practice both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills we ha gained so far in the semester into practice. It also highlighted many areas for improvement for me personally working in these types of environments.