A life lesson day..
This week in the UAE we have a five day weekend, so to kick things off my husband and I decided to take on a hike we had been planning to do for a while – to summit Jebel Qada’ah, one of the UAE’s highest peaks. This doesn’t mean much in terms of actual elevation; it only sits at around 1200m above sea level, but it’s a fair way when you are climbing up from actual sea level! The peak sits virtually on its own in the far North-West of the UAE, on the very edge of the Hajjar range.
The morning was cool, the gradient pleasant, the views incredible. We were in for an unforgettable day. Little did we know, as we sauntered up the jeep tracks in Wadi Bih, that the day would be imprinted in our memories for more than just the exhilaration of a summit.
The first disclaimer is that yes, this hike is marked as “difficult” – we weren’t expecting a walk in the park. We knew we were going to be climbing and descending over 1400m over the course of 15km or so. We knew there would be no water sources and no shady stretches. What we didn’t know, as we followed the Garmin GPS steadily up the wadi, was that the trail would very soon vanish, and that the ascent would only be the very beginning of our challenges.
As we wound steadily upwards it became clear that it was going to be a tough day. The trail quickly became a wadi scramble, with the occasional rock cairn indicating that we were on the right track. The going was uneven but pleasant enough, the wadi cliffs towering above us, shading our ascent. We paused for frequent photo opportunities, snacked on our cute little packed lunch and sipped from our generous water supply, and pressed onwards.
The wadi scramble steadily became a full on climb, hand over knee and plagued by enormous orange hornets intent on our ham and cheese sandwiches. The shade receded and we were soon sweating our way up to the saddle, which seemed to be receding from view rather than getting closer. The only strategy was to pick a tree, pick a boulder and make it that far, without looking up to much. By the time we reached the pass, we were both drenched in sweat, ravenous and desperate for some shade. Just as we reached the crest, a fist sized rock toppled off the top and hit my husband squarely on his inner ankle, causing pain that would only become more and more of an issue as the day wore on.
We huddled in the shade under a rock and inhaled some lunch, saving our mini coke cans until the last second to avoid being swarmed by the hornets from the wadi again. Refreshed, we set off up the “easy enough” (according to Wikilocs) scramble to the summit. Not easy, and not a scramble. We climbed, bouldered and hauled our way up to what we assumed to be the peak, edging along precipices which dropped right down to the wadi we had just ascended. We had to then descend and ascend twice more to hit Peak Major, marked by a trig point, and Peak Minor, marked by a bedraggled looking UAE flag. This was the easy bit. We sat and munched down some more food and enjoyed our second mini coke, relieved that now we only had to descend. We had rationed the water on the climb and were confident that our remaining 2.5 litres would get us down.
We had absolutely no idea what was coming.
We dropped off the peak and followed the GPS down what can only be described as a scree slope. The length of that first scree slope descent was less than a kilometre, yet it took us an hour to reach the first shoulder back over in the direction of Wadi Bih. We were down to 2litres of water, and had not yet descended below the elevation of the saddle on our ascent. The sun was blasting in our faces, and the cool breath of air we had appreciated at the summit had stilled on the south facing slope. We traversed another scree slope, reaching some old village settlements, starting to feel positive that such signs of civilisation must mean a trail. Not so.
We rounded the edge of the settlement, to be confronted by yet another scree slope, at least another 2km wide. The GPS showed that we had to cross this almost in its entirety before turning south to make our final descent down the loose, ankle rolling rubble. We fell, we rolled, we stumbled, and all the while our energy reserves dwindled. By the time we were half way across the traverse, we were down to 1.5 litres of water, with no sign of the road below, and no sign of any type of trail. My husband’s ankle had lost all sense of strength, and my legs were trembling so badly that every leap, every drop was a risk to my balance.
We finally hit the bigger rocks of the wadi, and followed it down. We spotted village huts, then heard an engine from the valley below. We heard what I think may have been a Greater Spotted Eagle, and my spirits began to lift. And then, I stopped short. The wadi before us had vanished. Vanished in to the thin air of a 70ft sheer cliff, worn smooth by millennia of violent storm water thundering down the mountainside. There was no way down. We had a litre of water left, less than an hour of light, and an impassable cliff ahead of us.
I stared frantically at my GPS, wondering what on earth had gone wrong. Too late, I realised that in the depths of exhaustion and dehydration, I hadn’t noticed the buzzing telling me we were forty, sixty then a hundred metres off course. The realisation hit me that we would have to double back, up the wadi, and around the cliff to drop down on the other side. The only way to cross, without climbing all the way back to the top of the scree slope hundreds of metres above and behind us, was to skirt across the scree at the top of the cliff. My husband could barely put any weight on his ankle, and my entire body was completely spent, shaking uncontrollably. This was, in all reality, one of the most terrifying moments I have experienced in my life. We scrabbled across the scree, only feet away from the edge of the drop, and collapsed on the far side. I didn’t even have enough water in me to sob. I sat, shaking and heaving, as my husband fought to keep any sips of water in his dehydrated body. We had less than forty-five minutes of daylight left, and less than a litre of water. I had no signal, and a whistle and a head torch are only useful if there are people close enough to hear or see them.
Knowing that if we stopped for too long we wouldn’t have the energy to get up, we stumbled around the edge of the cliff, heading for yet another scree slope. My husband ended up glissading down as I clung to the solid forms at the edges of the wadi. Finally reaching a level gradient and bigger rocks, we saw the first rock cairn we had seen for hours, indicating we were back on some kind of recognised trail. We had 500ml of water left, and about thirty minutes of light. Stumbling off down the wadi, I called out to George that I bet him anything the road was around the next shoulder. It wasn’t. My GPS was all over the place, switching form 2.1km to go to 15km to go. We had absolutely no idea how long the last kilometres would take us.
Rounding yet another shoulder in the wadi, I yelled out as I saw a wall. A human crafted, cemented wall. We were close. We hit a jeep track, our trembling legs uncontrollable on the comparative smoothness of the surface. As darkness fell, we rounded a bend and saw a settlement, and the road we knew our car was parked upon. We downed the final 200ml of water and wobbled over to the road, turning west as darkness fell.
Back on the road, our pace picked up and the cool air began to decrease the signs of dehydration, although we were both claggy mouthed and sick. 19.8 kilometres in to our 15km hike, a pickup truck, driven by an absolute hero of a local Emirati man, rounded the bend, stopped and handed us bottles of water before ushering us towards his truck. From their farms high up in the mountains, they had seen us emerging from the wadi and set off to find us and hydrate us, in the middle of the call to prayer. We jumped in the back of the pickup and he drove us to our little car, followed by his uncle who had brought more water.
As we drove home, as I drifted off to sleep that night and as I snoozed safely in our bed yesterday morning, it hit me time and time again how easily things could have been much more serious. We were, at some points yesterday, at risk of being in real danger. Whether of falling, or dehydration or of getting completely lost, I can’t say which was more likely. I feel like at different points they were all equally likely. Thankfully, we both kept our cool and kept muttering that we had to keep making sensible decisions, even at our lowest point. Whilst we came close to doing the opposite, we just about kept each other on track.
I love hiking. It is something that I have done my whole life, from when I was a tiny little tomboy begging my dad to go hiking in the Preseli range in Pembrokeshire, to taking on Everest Base Camp in 2014, to my plans to thru-hike the PCT in a few years’ time. But this wasn’t hiking. This was mountaineering, where the joy and pleasure of being in the wild was torn away by the sheer fear for our own safety. The highlight of the day was the ride from our local saviours, and the nectar of heaven they brought – water. have never been so glad to sit in the back of a pickup truck.
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