Early morning is the best. Normally the weather is better at this time. You will be almost alone, and everything is calm. This morning I was speedhiking with my husky, and I was happy and almost felt alone in the world. Many are the mornings when I felt like this. The peak trip to Sönner tväråklump, or starting skiing from Sylarnas mountain station. Starting early before the sun has rise, or the morning when I went up early, early towards Helags glacier and did some telemark tracks before the others have woke up. So my opinion: mornings are the best.

When it comes to the workout, I still mix as much as possible. At the moment I am focusing on leg strengt and stamina. Ended up the week with a climbing session at the climbing gym.

Today we have come to the section of risk mitigation in the risk management series. The difference between risk avoidance and risk mitigation is that due to risk mitigation, you dont avoid the risk. But you try to minimize it. The example last week was to take another route to avoide a ”airy” one. If you cant do that, you instead can use a rope for a better safety. You can also build fixed field work for a safer passing etc. The better risk planning overall and risk awerness the easier it will be to define how to mitigate the risks. And the earlier in the planning you can identify the risk, the better the mitigation planning will turns out.

There are four diffrent ways you can do the risk mitigation. Accept the risk, and calculate with it. Avoid it, You can also tranfer the risk(this is more common in the business, rather then in outdoor). And also to reduce the risk..

And at the moment it is just 4 weeks to go before this years advents calendar will start…

Enjoy life, and do some more enjoyful activities…Stengthen yourself with filling up your life with funny and challenging things…Montains are calling, and I must go:-)

Why not do same sky or trail running…

https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1373161006/vandringspodden/11-spring-vad-ar-grejen-med-fjallopning

See ya soon…

Today it will be about Pre-Winter planning and I will also continue with the risk planning and the next step. I am in the middle of the planning of a pre-Winter tour. This season hav its extra demands. The first challenging part will be: how to find the trail? You want be able to see the summer trail, and the Winter trail is not frozen, so what to do? Either you are very well known with the trail, so you know were it is. Or you choose a trail where the summer and Winter trail is the same. Normally there is none, or at least a few others on the move in the mountain Environment. That is something I like, but that is also a risk you have to consider. You will be on your own what does it all mean. You have to take care of yourself, even in a accident. This time it will be a tour to Harjedalen, one area with lots of bears, wolves, Lynx and also Wolverines.

In the riskplanning part we now have reached the risk avoidance part. What does that means? First of all we nead to clear out the difference between risk avoidance and risk reduction. Risk avoidance deals with eliminating any exposure to risk that poses a potential loss, while risk reduction deals with reducing the likelihood and severity of a possible loss. Risk avoidance is not performing any activity that may carry risk. So a practical example: For reaching a peak, we can choose two diffrent ways. One is exposed with a part known as ”airy”, and the other is not. Then if we choose the one that not is exposed, we have done a risk avoidance. On my pre-Winter tour this means that I will avoid the severe block terrain, this for avoiding the risk of a fall with a slippery and icy Surface…

See ya soon..

Today I will continue with the Risk Management part, and a way of how to make good descision. One of the most important part when it comes to Risk Management. I will also write about Risk Awerness And I will end up with the history of the Djatlov expedition in the Ural Mountains of Russia.

When it comes to the Risk Management we have now end up to point two. The Risk Awerness, During the work with the Risk Plan you now have get awere about which type of risks that will be included in the activity. Now you might need someone else to review the plan. You also need to think of the box. Which risks have you not foreseen. Now you probably need to update the risk matrix as well. As a private person you can think about:

• Lost gloves, cutting edge from the ski, allergy reaction of some food etc.

When it comes to decision making, there are a lot to think about. Normally in crises situation we take decision with Amygdala, this means that we dont use the frontal lobe. So we dont have access to out whole intellect. So the result of the decision will be from the ”fight-flight” behavior instead of reasonably controlled. This is what trauma team at hospital train a lot on. Something we as outdoor nerds also would be good at. With mental target image training we can improve our ability in the area. So trough training to avoide the emotional way of making decisions you will be better to make the right decisions…

Februari 60 years ago in beginning of Februari a 10 man  expedition lead by Igor Djatlev from Ural Technical Collage, started  for ascending the mountain Cholat Siachi (The meager mountain). They never came back. Three weeks after they were expected to be back the relatives asked for a search of them. They were found a couple of days later. Two of them was found under a three, There was trace in the fir were they have had as a shelter. Three others were found dead on the way back to the tent, The other was found dead in a gully. Despite a lot of investegations there has not been any explanation of what happened that night. The first theory was that a inuite was the perpetrator, but there was no footprints from any other than the memebers of the expedition, The victims have used a knife for getting out of the tent. They havd left the tent without boots nor warm clothing. So the question is – could it have been a avalange or a very strong wind from the mountain? After 60 years we still dont know the reason to the accident. The victims also got strange damage on their bodys. One of the two women in the exedition was found with out her tounge. There was also trace of radition of some of the clothes that was found. This leads to a trace of that the expedition have went in to a test area for the army and a missile has explode close to them. The investigator that was in charge, were called home to his superior when the bodies was found. When he went back he was sealed and did not cooperate with the rest of the staff within the investegation.  Another remarkable thing was that the participants of the expedition was very skilled and got all the right equipment for this type of challenges. So it it quite intreating of what has happended. Was it an avalange? was it yeti? Was it a missile, was it a fighting jet that make them think it was a avalange? Will we ever know what really happen the 2:nd of February in 1959?

The Sweden Mid University has been given funding for a four year research program for the effects of sports and outdoor life in nature and environment. Mistra has given support of 56 milj swedish crones. An important ant interesting program.

See ya soon…

I’ve been writing a lot about safety here. When doing outdoor activities there will always be a part of risk included in it. Outdoor activity as a art is about feeling the fear, expectation and scary. But it should be like riding a rollercoaster, were you have a lock for not falling out. It will be the same in outdoor activities. But here you (as a guide, or parent or organizer) will be the ”lock”. From my point of view,this area become more and more important. The reason threfore is that the season and the global warming up will affect the outdoor environment. Also all new activities will also affect the risk factors. So to begin with I will present the diffrent parts of the Risk Management. Then I will present all diffrent parts in details in the upcoming blogs. Risk Management consists of: Risk planning which includes risk value etc. The next step will be risk awerness, here you will describe all risks that can be occure. Then the next step will be risk avoidance, how can I reduce the risk and risk factors. Then the time has come to risk mitigation. After that part there will be a definition and how to hadle common risks, and also exampel from real life. And at the end the formula, how to work with risks in a proper and structure way. Now you as a private person and not guide ask what is it for me? Well you can use parts of it, I will have special updates for you in the ”chapters”.

Risk Planning; Normally we got a general coreplan for this. But you still need to make a plan for every single occasion. Every activity will be uniqe due to weather, area and participants etc. Here you can start with thinking trough the whole activity from A-Z and what can be the risks? When you have define all risks it is time to value them. Then a matrix can be useful. After you have define all risk, and have them evaluated you think trough it again and may ask some else to check and thing together with you. Step one is now done. Here you got an example of a useful matrix. The likelihood and the consequense will be the main lines here.

• For you as a private person, you can think for just a specific activity day. For example, the family is about to ski in a ski-area. What can happen? Blisters, spraining, the family migt be devided, if its cold frostbite might be a risk etc.

Ok so here we go, next blog will be about risk awerness…

See ya soon..