I am going to divide this blogpost into two parts. Firstly, I will write about my experience and challenges in week 6 and 10, followed by reflecting on my learnings, such as how I have experienced information assimilation and experimental learning through these weeks.

I’d like to begin by the trip in week 6.

After five weeks in Norway our outdoor education group went on its first winter trip. We went to Hovden, roughly 200 km up north from Kristiansand. Snow was welcoming us, and I had never experienced that much snow before.

In advance, we learned which kind of snow caves exist and how important the right nutrition is – especially during winter. We also learned about hypothermia and how to treat it. This information helped us to pack the right clothes and food before leaving to Hovden.

Straight after unpacking, it was time for the first ski trip. Another first time for me, as I had never tried cross-country-skiing before. The first day was all about ‘Learning by doing’. We skied to a little hill and learned how to get up and down.  I improved my skiing abilities quickly and after a few hours of falling, getting up and trying again, I was able to get up and down the hill without falling. It was a day of experimental learning, as we just ‘jumped into the blue’. One example: we waxed our skis for the first time, shortly before we started our first tour. The first time standing on skis was when we were supposed to start to ski directly. Our teacher just let us try ourselves bevor teaching us anything about the style.

To conclude, my intrinsic motivation increased thanks to the nice first day.

On the following day we went on a hike into the higher mountains. The weather changed quickly which is typical for the Norwegian winter mountains. We experienced a small snowstorm and dug a lunchbreak shelter. It was a wall with an integrated bench allowing us to have a proper lunchbreak and to get out of the wind. During winter trips first, it is important to not sweat to prevent being cold. Secondly, to always add another layer when stopping and thirdly I felt as I was on a north pole expedition and my focus shifted from concentrating on skiing to enjoying the view, my body temperature, being cold and the group dynamic.

It must be mentioned that we stayed in cabins during week 6.

Furthermore, we learned the proper way of skiing and spend some hours playing games on skies. Playing games while being on skies was a good way to learn how to act on them, because the game was in the centre of attention and not skiing itself.

To summarise, week 6 was a great introduction to the winter trips and afterwards we were able to know which clothes were important, which were missing and what we had to change for week 10.

Moreover, it is important to mention, that the trip in week 10 was the most ‘extreme’ trip I participated in. We slept in snow caves for two nights in a row. The temperature outside was around -15 degrees but in a snow cave it is around 0 to -3 degrees. The first night, we dug a four-person snow cave and after digging it for 5 hours we crawled into our sleeping bags quite exhausted from skiing up the mountain to basecamp one and digging into the snow.

During the first night I was very cold and learned how to prevent myself from freezing in the second night. Here is another example of experimental learning.

We skied to the next campsite the following day with all our equipment, packed in our big backpacks. Consequently, skiing was a bigger challenge in the beginning, as the backpack shifted weight due to quick direction changes, making it more challenging to keep the balance. The last night we were able to decide whether we wanted to sleep in a tent or dig an edge cave for two people. Alina and I dug our edge cave for 6 hours. We divided our tasks. One dug and the other one cut ice blocks with which we closed the roof and entrance in the end. The edge cave was very cozy. We had a bigger cold lock and sleeping cabins on each side. Additionally, I put on another layer of wool and got a second sleeping bag which led to a good night sleep.

During week 6 and 10, I got to experience ‘friluftsliv’.

I got to know personal boundaries, I learned how to ski, I froze, I felt adrenalin, I was exhausted, I was astonished by the landscape, the mountains, the snow, I felt a strong group dynamic, I laughed and probably the most important value: I enjoyed the trip to the fullest, had fun and learned a lot – not only for the semester but for my life.