Skiing Trip!

Our ski trip to Lapland was sweet, but it's good to be back at my Holsby home. We left Holsby on Sunday, March 18 at 7:00 am. We drove most of the day and then hiked up to a small cabin to spend the night. It was a really neat cabin that was built and taken care of by the nearby town; it had a table and chairs, a wood stove, and electricity (probably from a solar panel) for light. Anyone who came by could eat lunch there, warm up, etc. It's the kind of thing that probably wouldn't last long in North America because I feel like it would be abused and trashed pretty fast, so it's a cool expression of Swedish culture. We played a few games, discussed the upcoming trip, and set some personal goals for ourselves for the trip. Monday we drove some more; we reached Tarnaby, our destination, in the late afternoon and had a chance to shower and relax.

On Tuesday, we got our first taste of Telemark skiing. Telemark ski boots are only attached to the ski at the toe and are a little flexible at the ankle which makes them way easier to walk in than alpine skis. We practised stops and turns on the bunny hill and tried not to get our arms pulled off by the tow rope as we went up. It was definitely a challenging day, and I still don't really have the hang of the Telemark turns, but it was good to be challenged. That night we met with the confirmation group from the church we were staying with; the confirmation group consists of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds who meet every week to hang out and learn about their faith and at the end of the year get 'confirmed' in their faith. This particular group will be coming to Holsby in the spring for a retreat week. We played some games with them, ate dinner, shared a few testimonies and sang some songs.

Wednesday we took a short day trip into the mountains. The first thing we learned was how to put skins on our skins. The skins are pieces of fabric that stick to the skis and allow them to slide forward but not backward so that we could walk up hill. We hiked up the ski slope and into the back country. We found a little-used hill and skied up and down a few times. That night we prepared to head out on our winter camping trip, rechecking our gear and packing.

Thursday morning it was raining in the valley and really wet snow up in the mountains where we were planning to stay. We decided to postpone our departure to see if the weather improved because it would have been miserable to be wet all week. We waited two hours until the rain stopped. We took two t-bar lifts a fair ways up the mountain and then skied several kilometers to a stuga, a cabin that boasted a few dorm rooms, table and chairs, wood stove, well, and out house. We pitched our tents down the hill from the stuga; we dug them in which means we dug a hole to put them up in and used the snow from the hole to make blocks and build a wall to shelter them from the wind. We also built a sheltered kitchen area to cook and sit out of the wind.

Friday morning we tore down everything we had built the night before, packed up everything, and skied to our base camp. There we dug in our tents again, build kitchen areas for each cook groups, dug out snow caves for eating in out of the wind and snow, dug out a snow cave for a common meeting area and another for an 'outhouse.' Digging turned out to be a lot of fun once I decided I like digging, which is a good thing since did a lot of it. It was kind of cool to dig blocks out of snow and build a wall, kind of like being in preschool again and building out of blocks on a large scale. It was also kind of funny how you could dig out a shovel of snow, toss it over your wall, and it would 'disappear' for all intents and purposes - there was no waste or debris to clean up. Unfortunately, I left my nalgene bottle in the snow while we were digging and either we built over it or it got buried in snow.

Saturday we attempted a day trip to summit the highest peak in the area, but the day was quite warm so we were soon soaked. Then the snow and wind picked up so we decided to turn around and head back to camp. We continued building base camp, finishing off our snow caves. When it came time for supper, it was still quite windy, wet and snowy. We managed to get both our stoves wet so that although we tried more than twenty times, they wouldn't stay lit. We finally gave up and just ate an extra lunch we had packed.

Sunday was a special treat. The day dawned beautiful and sunny. Our leaders told us that it would be our break day. We skied back to the stuga where we got warm and dry and were able to dry most of our gear. Petter, the resident IT guy at Holsby who had driven up with us, met us there with moose fajitas, cookies, chocolate, coffee, and tea. We spent the day hanging out, reading out Bibles and journalling, reading an article by Henri Nouwen called "Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry" and discussing what we had read. The article resonated with me and is well worth the read. I think it was something I really needed to hear right now; if you're curious, feel free to ask me more about it. Overall, it was a really great, relaxing, refreshing day.

Monday we another wet day. Instead of attempting a day trip, we decided to stay in camp and wait to see if the weather got better. I read my Bible and journalled some more. Then I played cards with Timo, Alfred, and Sini. We made a hot lunch since we were in camp anyway and hung around some more. Towards the end of the day, we hiked up a hill beside our camp; it was really windy (70km/h gusts) but not too snowy. We played with the wind, leaning into it and jumping and trying to get it to carry us. We somersaulted down the hill and had a short snowball fight. It was a time of just being together and being silly together. The wind was crazy that night, making it difficult to sleep.

Tuesday morning we woke up at 4:30am to destroy our base camp and ski back. We had the chance to shower, repack, and eat a hot meal before piling into the van to start the road trip back to Holsby. At about 11:00pm someone noticed a strange light in the sky behind us, so we all piled out of the van and saw the Northern Lights! At around 1:00am we stopped at a rest stop, took out our sleeping bags and sleeping pads and walked a little way into the woods to sleep for six hours. We got back to Holsby at around 2:30pm on Wednesday and had the rest of the day off to unpack our own stuff, shower, and crash. Most of Thursday was spent in gear clean up, cleaning the tents, stoves, dishes and other various equipment we'd use and doing laundry.

Describing all the things that happened doesn't really do well to explain the trip - the frustration of falling down and the numerous times people had to help me up when I couldn't get up with my heavy pack on, the unsteadiness of skiing down hills and trying to Tele-turn, the joy and pride in building walls and digging caves, the struggle to keep my ski tips above the fresh snow as we hiked up hill, the beauty of the snow-covered mountains, the surprise of seeing white birds (ptarmigans?) living in the mountains, the concentration necessary (at least at the beginning) to just keep moving forward without falling over, the random conversations on the trail and in the caves, the solitude of skiing with your own thoughts for company and the way that could turn into a great time to pray, the late-night tent conversations with Sini (our telemark ski instructor and the only other girl on the trip), and the wonder of a hot shower, clean clothes and a warm bed after days without. These are the things that characterize the trip even more than the events that happened on it, and these are the things that are hard to truly share.

Today is the first official day students can arrive for Spring Term. I'm excited to meet all the new people! One of my new roommates is from Australia! As excited as I am, I'm also tired; I'm glad today is unplanned and most people won't arrive until tomorrow. If you think of it, pray I'll be able to catch up on sleep and start the term refreshed and ready to go.

`TTFN`