rain

It’s raining, it’s pouring, and someone is snoring…KOKER LAG TUR!

This week I went on a trip with the other three members of my cooking team– Marte, Pernille, and Jonas. We planned this trip ourselves, so there was a high possibility of disaster. Thankfully, this three day tour was disaster free.

Our first day began at 10:30am, when we were dropped off at an area called Fitjedalen. For the start of the hike we were accompanied by a cooking group from Ski and Surf. After walking in the rain and through the mud, we arrived at Traudalsvatnet which is where parted ways with the other group.

Just 30 minutes through the forest, we arrived at our first night’s destination, Ramnestadstøylen. By that time it had been raining steady for a substantial amount of time. Before leaving for the trip, we had been given instructions. We were to set up camp at least 150 meters away from any cabins, and we were definitely not, ever, supposed to go inside of a cabin. We might have fudged that 150 meter rule. But we certainly did not break in (by break in I mean walk in through the unlocked door,) to a cabin. That would just be too naughty of us.

We woke up the next morning to find ourselves laying in a soaked tent. The wind and rain had been so strong all night there wasn’t a dry spot to find. The best surprise: puddles in our shoes. With plastic bags on our feet we began our trek towards Støylsvatnet. We took a detour to a historical cave, Russehola. Feel free to read the description in the photo below. With just an hour left of our hike, it began to rain hard once again. Anything that had dried over the course of the day became saturated once again. We arrived at our destination, (and I use that word loosely, because it was more of just a point on the map,) with plenty of daylight left. Once again, we may have chosen to ignore the 150 meter rule in order to avoid setting up our tent in marshland. After cooking Jonas’s excellently red-wine marinated steak, we hurried into our tent to escape the persistent rain. Since we found ourselves in our sleeping bags at only 6:00, we ate cold s’mores and chatted. The night’s question was “What are your roots, who are you, and where are you going?” You can just imagine how much I loved answering those questions.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain hitting the tent, accompanied by my cooking group singing me Happy Birthday! After hiking down to the sea and over to Kviteneset, we picked up some kayaks and began our trip back to Nordfjord. Luckily, there was no rain nor fog, so we found our way through the fjord and back to school easily. Although if you ask my biceps, they might not agree that it was such an easy trip.

Overall, this was a great trip with three great people! Although there was way too much water, the wetness was way worth it. Go AKT11!

Elvepadling: Water Water Water

What do you get when you sleep inside of a tent right next to a rushing river while it’s raining? An ultimate all-natural noise machine that lulls you right to sleep. Or maybe it was simply our exhaustion that knocked us out.

Meet Colin and Mette– two very lovely people that did all of the instructing on this river kayaking trip. Colin, being from Tasmania Australia, spoiled me with english.

Colin and Mette!

The first day was dedicated to basic kayaking skills and safety… what a snore. Good thing we had Colin’s oh-so-funny Australian humor to keep me entertained.

If you think making pizza on the grill is a process, try making pizzas on a fire. Although it’s lengthy,  it was worth it.

Day two consisted of a little more current action. We worked on S-turns in and out of the current, and then traversing or ferry-glideing across the river. When I asked Mette what temperature the water was she replied: “Eh, maybe 11 degrees… I reckon it’s quite warm.” If thats warm… I’m terrified for cold.

After a long session of kayaking Group A (my group) returned to base camp to an almost completed dinner. We called them kabobs but they were in no way kabobs (…at least not the meat-on-a-stick definition I am familiar with.) Despite what they were called they were delicious. Plate-licking delicious according to Frida.

After dinner we broke into teams and played a competition game involving rope-throwing. My team won. Woo.

In my opinion, day three was the best day. We woke up to a morning of rain, after a night of rain. Rain rain rain. After struggling to get that cold wet suit on one last time we hit the river. We ended the session with a pretty long class 2 rapid (with some class 3 elements.) Øyvind and I volunteered to go first while the others watched from down river. I followed Colin down, managing to avoid hitting any rocks or flipping over. At the end of the rapid we were faced by a huge wave. Instead of trying to fight it, I simply bent down, paddled hard, and embraced the cold crashing water as it hit my face. It was great fun. Unfortunately Øyvind didn’t make it all the way through the rapid. He flipped, and before breaking surface hit his head on a rock. Good thing we wore helmets right? He was then airlifted out by a helicopter and… (only kidding.) Øyvind was fine. I have the least amount of pictures from day three… none of me to be exact. You’ll just have to imagine.

And after we packed up camp in the rain, we all ended up smelling like wet dog. That didn’t stop me from falling dead-asleep on the car ride back to school.