Reflection of Ski Trip to Hovden 20/02/2015 – 23/02/2015

Planning process

The first part of the planning process was to decide what the aims of the trip were. For me, personally, it was less about going really on a big epic trip miles into the mountains and more about improving my skiing and making sure that all my kit was suitable winter use. As a group we wanted to gain more experience at camping in winter conditions so we made sure that there was somewhere on the route that would be suitable to camp at.

So we planned a route that wasn’t particularly long nor did it have many areas of steep descent and ascent. However there was enough ascent and descent for us to practice our technique. The longest day was the first up to Tjoornbrotsbru cabin which was 13km and was mostly up hill. To make the packs lighter we divided up the tents and the food so that people weren’t carry to much group kit.

There was option to camp for two night however we decided that as some members of the group hadn’t camped much, in either summer or winter, it would be a better idea to stay in a cabin after the night in the tent.

Group dynamic processes before and after

There wasn’t much evidence of Tuckman’s Stages of group development but this may be because the group already knew each other quite well.

On the trip the group got on really well and we all used our various strengths to help the other. For example the better skiers coached the others when we were descending slopes and those who had more experience camping helped the others with that.

Execution of the field trip

For the most part the trip went exactly as we had planned it apart from a few things. The first change was that we camped a few kilometres further south than we had planned. This was down to navigational errors, we had travelled further and faster than we expected because the conditions were so good. This wasn’t a problem as it meant we had a smaller distance to travel the next day.

Reflection on the learning outcomes, what was successful, what was not?

The learning outcomes were all achieved, we all improved our skiing, gained more experienced at winter camping and navigation and got used to skiing longer distances with heavier packs.