Hardangervidda. On my way to a hunt once I was caught in a blizzard after eight hours of walking uphill with heavy gear. We knew the weather was going to be bad that night so we had planned to do the entire walk before sunset (around 15:00). Unfortunately, due to our idiocy, we had packed way too heavily and by the time sunset came we were only 2/3 of the way after an eight our walk uphill. Due to the speed of the sunset in winter we had very little time to look for a camping spot, not that we had much option as it was just a massive valley/canyon sloping downwards well above the tree limit. So we pitched our tent and prepared to wait out the weather over night. Turns out that at night some weather phenomenon happens in valleys, so although we had laid our tent correctly according to the wind at day - at night it came from the sides in full force. Consequently the tent acted as an accordion the entire night and we got no sleep. For a long time during the night we were convinced that this was it, we had no cellphone reception and the tent felt as if it would take off at any moment - leaving us stranded in the pitch black wilderness.

Broken and beaten we aborted the hunt the next day. To make the trip back easier we burned a lot of our gear and drank most of the beer we had brought. Even though we damn near died we learned some very valuable lessons that night, most importantly to pack light! Which excludes bringing two twelve packs of beer.. On later trips I've substituted the beer for some liquor on a hip flask, and I always make sure to bring a satelite phone as well as a heavy duty walkie-talkie.