There might be an english speaking audience to this blog now and then. An we definetely have a lot of our everyday life spelled in english. our guides, Tanner Erickson and Dave Redig, have been leading trips for Pacific Challenge, our operator, for many years. This night we had Dave sharing some thoughts an stories on life as a tour leader, and life outdoor. Yesterday Tanner did the same.

It’s no doubt that during 8 years of experience, the students of our school has had a great benefit with beeing blessed with tour leaders who actually invests in personal relationships with their group. As this year. Many friendships has grown and stayed alive years after the schoolyear has ended. The joy and curiousness on how group dynamics work, and the real joy of seeing people overcoming challenges and growing by that, is a quality mark on the spirit of our guides. We’re fortunate and blessed to have been running like this for so many years!

A guide isn’t just a position, or a job. It’s a personality. A guide can operate pretty professional without necessarily beeing personal. But it feels different when you notice that our guides invest their time and energy because they want to, and seriously want the rest of us to have a good time.

There’s no 8-4 schedual, really. This afternoon Dave took a minivan over to the Site trampoline park at 5.30. Yesterday both Tanner and Dave came along, same time. Todays trip was booked after a great success yesterday. And there were no time for coffe break. The trampolines were kept warm just as much by the americans as the norwegians. Then, as sweat dried up during the drive back to pinewood lodge, the thoughts moved over to dinner preparations.

And doing the night shift in mt Cook, Dave shared his knowledge in photography starting at 10 pm, keeping an eager class awake until midnight learnig how to capture the incredible night sky through different lenses. There were probably no nighttime mark on the paycheck. Nor for this teacher. And there will probably never be. The wish and dedication for leading, sharing and experiencing comes from another source than the paycheck. And, og course, the joy and fun from tumbling around in life with new people, sharing a lot of energy from laughs, crazy moments and sometimes lifechanging moments.

That’s the type of guides, cooperators and friends we’ve got. And it’s a rare breed. Some of this breed trained in cooperation with pacific challenge and other human beeings. And, if we might say – some are products of 150 years of the very rare breed called the Norwegian folkehøgskole.

Actually this was only supposed to be a short post with some of Daves pictures. So – here’s a variety of moments captured by driver/guide/cook/photographer Dave Redig –

When you’re patient enough to end up in the right place at the right time, someones story could be told in a single picture. Elianna celebrates her skydive.

Light is everything –

Excitement while a classmate finishes a skydive, the first ever.

Excitement released!!

If you don’t really know whether to be scared or excited, choose the best looking option! And make sure someone captures it!

Windy run for mother earth.

Superman came over. Brought that dramatic light.

Patient photographer asking the firesquad to don’t move. For the 3rd time. And the firesquad finally getting there.

Still looking forward to present the results of that night course. Wait patiently, on this channel.