This can be viewed in two parts:

https://youtu.be/TBNfnCPkhNY

And my notes are:

So *sung*

This week, myself and the legendary team of internationals went skiing

That’s not hard I hear you say

Not this type of skiing I retort! *downhill skiing picture*

This type *mountaineering skiing*

Which was actually more learning how to fall over

And as soon as you aren’t good at falling over from doing a particular thing, they throw another thing at you to fall down doing.

Yay for gravity!

Break it down now!

So, Monday started off okay!

I woke up late, packed all my stuff in 15 minutes got that sorted and then spent the next hour wondering about what I had forgotten.

The reason for this is that Len was taking out stuff in a van.
I was taking myself and a few others in my car.
a van has more space than my car.

So anyway,

To trollaktiv!

First thing that happened upon arrival was we got unleashed upon out accommodation.

On offer was 3 buildings, one of many rooms with kitchen and living room and a few bedrooms and toilets. *should have filmed this*  *draw a floor plan?*

The other two were mirror copies of each other and were very cozy mini houses, a bedroom for four and a half floor for two more (this is where I lived)

While we

And we are off!

So first of all we had to put some wax on our skis.

“So, you want to break your ski down into thirds, then the first and last third are for gliding and the middle is for grip”

Which turns out to be a little harder than predicted.

See the video edition of this at:

https://youtu.be/3IuglnNRTCo

Self organised trip. LONG DISTANCE SKI

Haukeliseter to Hovden

18.2 – 21.2.18

This happened weeks ago, I plan on telling you what happened.

Don’t expect details.

The purpose of this trip was for us to increase distance and weighted skiing in prep for future trips, which I found odd, after all, we were doing a multi day trip, there wouldn’t be a reason to carry more that I already was, so it wasn’t so much a gradual increase as a jump in the deep end.

So, we started off with a plan to travel far and learn how to do skiing.  Then we were told that we should go where we planned because of avalanches and we would die.  So we changed the plan, instead of getting on a bus and going north we got on a bus and went south.  This was good and all, but by the time we got off the bus and found a place to sleep, it was time to go to sleep.

Important note here, this is my first time sleeping outside, without a tent, in the snow, in very deep snow, in the very cold.

I decided not to use a tent, I was excited about having my new bivvi bag.  I don’t believe this was a mistake as I came out the other side with all of my fingers, toes and nose all intact.  Although it wasn’t glamourous living.

Upon arriving at our sleeping area everyone set about flattening an area for them to sleep on, I didn’t see the point of this as I was digging down into the snow to sleep, thus my biggest concern was digging a flat shelf to sleep on.

Day two gave us some spectacular views and it was a pleasure to walk thought them, we walked across many large lakes which I think some people found boring, but I was okoay with it.

I started the day with the pulk and after a reletivly crap nights sleep I wasn’t up to pulling it quickly, so I adopted a very slow, very steady pace, I kept asking if it was okay with everyone else because that pace I could keep up for hours with little regard for the terrain or weight of it.  People kept saying it was fine, but when my time came to an end and someone else took it, I cant remember who, we travelled much faster, only then did I realise my mistake, but its fine, I could have gone faster but it’s a bit too late to try and prove myself.

Back to the views, we were traveling pretty fast, which was both good and bad, it meant we got to travel though many spectacular views, I hope editing Wyl is putting pictures up as I talk *stand still*

That day we pushed on to a DNT hut, however, this choices popularity within the group may have been over shadowed by somepeople being louder.  Anyway, we reached the hut, after 19km of gruling skiing.  At some point after it got dark I started to hallucinate, I am still not sure why, I was hydrated, I was fed, I was tired, but I have been more tired in the past so I have little idea why I was seeing patches of colour and a glow coming from under my skiis.

We reached the hut, kind of, we were all really spread out, looking back at what other people have written about this trip I think that day we did too much.

At the hut we met a man and his dog, I cant remember his name, I probably wasn’t paying attention when he told me it, but the point is that he was in the opposite hut and came over to chat, it turns out he was skiing from the south to the north with his dog.  My favourite part of that is when he brought his dog in and told us that his dog had his own pulk, which I think is amazing and something I want to do one day.

The next day we set off a bit later, I think somepople were enjoying the warmth of the hut quite a lot, yes that person is me.

Not much to say about this day, we kept skiing, had lunch and were constantly surrounded by amazing scenery.  We expected to be navigating during out trip, how ever we found out that his wsnt necessary as there were sticks in the snow marking our whole route which took a weight of my mind, I am really bad at navigating for someone who has been doing it for many years.  I stand byt the fact that navigating is an art not a skill, and while I have skill and technical knowledge about navigating I lack the art form behind it.

That night we stayed outside again, we did pass a DNT hut, but that was where we had lunch and it was far to early to stop for the day.  After setting up camp we were sledging down a small hill, a few of us walked up to the top of it and were enjoying the views of it.  I spend most of my time looking at hills and dreaming about snowboarding down them.

The next day we set off and didn’t have far to go until we came to some amazing down hill.  I am very glad I didn’t have the pulk for this down hill.  It was amazing, while I am a snowboarder throught and thought it was so much fun to be flying (slowly) down the hill in between trees.

Overall, it wasn’t too tough, i got tired at many points but that is oart of the fun, I am surprised how quickly I got used to wearing a heavy pack while skiing.  For cooking I used my storm kitchen and lived of porridge, cheese sandwiches, and five bean chilli that was supplied by my friends back in England.  Although my food was wet a thus heavy, I don’t regret it, it tasted good and eating it with lots of water helped me stay hydrated.

https://youtu.be/3140qH7O2GY

Finally finished my video!

which is easier to watch than acctually reading, but if you would something to read, here are my notes!

Over nighter

We camped.

It was in-tents.

Ah, youre welcome.

So, yeah, camping, we all packed up all our stuff and set off into the wild.  And by wild I mean a 5 minute walk into the trees behind uni.

*insert picture, or walk it and film it*

Upon arrival we set up out tents, straight forward stuff.  The area was mostly open land with sparse trees.  There was a large space of flat land, unfortunately this was sheet ice and a near instant death to anyone who tried to walk on it.

But what did I learn??

Learning Outcomes:

1. Tested kit

This is an important one, for me, lots of my kit has only seen temperatures above 0C with the lowest so far being minus 6 (Great fun, remind me to tell you about it later)

The most important thing with regards to camping is staying warm.

This is why we curl up in a ball and stick our noses up our buts to stay warm.  Oh wait, that’s huskies.  Okay, so we rely on sleeping bags, roll mats and tents.

Sleeping bags, now there is so much information out there on sleeping bags that I will break it down to this:

*table*

So you have your thousand euro sleeping bag which can keep you warm to minus a zillion, throw it on the floor and off you go!

Except no, now we are all told that heat rises, however, thanks to thermodynamics its not that simple.

Lying on a cold floor will squish you sleeping bag, thus squishing all the lovely warm air pockets within the fibers/feathers that are designed to keep you warm.

So you need an unsquishable sleeping bag!

**face pops up from unusual place**

Um, no, because then it wouldn’t be packable and you would need a pack the size of you to carry it.

**pop up face looks sad**

So we are doomed to have our warm sucked away by the floor cold??

Um, no, we can use a roll mat!  Now these come is all sorts of shapes and sizes, but like the sleeping bags here is a cheat sheet!

**inflatable vs foam table**

2. Learned many games and variations of games I already knew

Americans:

Cops and Robbers

Brits:

Chicken in a hen house

Rubber chicken rounders

Dutch:

Monster Movement

Hungairians:

Naughts and crosses relay race

Aussies

Helium stick

3. Food

So it turns out that you can eat more than ration packs and cerial bars while out in the wild.

Using a collection of chicken, veggie meat, beef and lamb we crafted a great collection of food.  Most of it looked similar, but it tasted good.  I was cleaning out the pans, yes it still tasted good while it was cold!

How did we cook it?

Storm kitchens!

Pros and cons:

The spirit burner:

• It is easy to use, due to the simple construction.
• The burner works even when cold (usually)
• The fuel is rather cheap.
• It takes longer to reach the boiling point (compared to when using a gas burner), partly due to lower power. (sometimes it cant boil water)
• The spirit burner produces more soot than the gas burner.

The gas burner:

• It takes a shorter time to reach the boiling point, due to the higher power.
• It is easy to use. It produces no soot.
• It is easy to adjust the power during use.
• It does not work at a temperature below -10 degrees Celsius. (unless using cold weather gas)
• The fuel is more expensive than for the spirit burner.
•  It is more difficult to determine when you are running out of fuel in the container
• Resource heavy, a bulky gas canister is thrown away each time.

4. Camp fire

A camp fire was started by a few of our group, I don’t want to name names, they know who they are!

The structure of the fire was a little inconsistent, for starters almost all the wood was wet, and there was no set “fire controller” so it ended up being a mass up shape od lean to and tepee

5. Ice is slippery
6. Application of Allemannsrett

This is an interesting one.  Allemannsrett translates to everyman’s right, also referred to as the “freedom to roam”

So this is interesting… I seem to be able to put words online…

Velkommen til home.uia.no.