Hatzatzon Valley

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What a great hike! Amichai (Amichai Spector http://www.spectours.co.il) invited me to join this hike after I joined a trip to Jordan’s Wadi Fayed that he organized (see the blog: https://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Petra/blog-950587.html).

The trip started really early. Or maybe really late on the previous day? I dunno. Either way I got up before 3 AM, had some coffee and something to eat and left. Eli and Kobi met me at Latroun and I continued with them to Mitspe Shalem, on the Dead Sea road.

We met up with the rest of the group there, a little before 5 AM, had some coffee, cake and dried fruit, and at the first imaginary hint of light we set out. The beginning of the trail is a steep climb up to the beginning of the trail. Confusing? Well, that’s the way it is. First you have to climb up the Rift Valley cliffs, up a path the Bedouins call ‘Nakeb A-Hmar’, or the ‘Donkey’s Path’ (how appropriate). This path takes you up a steep cliff to over 500 meters higher than the starting point! Then you continue on a dirt road until you reach the path into the Hatzatzon valley. That’s the beginning of the trail.

So we started climbing. Up, up, higher and higher, with a couple stops on the way to rest and take pictures of the sunrise over the mountains of Moav. After about an hour and a half of climbing we finally reached the top and sat down for breakfast at a lookout point with the entire Dead Sea valley laid out before us: the Dead Sea, Rout 90 and Mitzpe Shalem far, far below, and even Metzokei Dragot and the Zero Lookout point (it being at sea level) to the North were quite far below us.

We sat there for a rest, breakfast, and mint tea before getting on our way. After about an hour’s walk on the dirt road we turned left, off the path and into the Hatzatzon stream by a pretty acacia tree. This part of the stream is very pretty, despite the Arabic graffiti on the walls.

The valley twists and turns, getting deeper all the time. Soon we had to carefully climb down small gulleys and dry waterfalls. We helped each other down these falls, sometimes using rope, until we reached the first rappelling spot. This is a very pretty 15-meter waterfall. Amichai lowered us all safely to the bottom, where Eli made coffee and we all had a snack of dried fruit and nuts.

I collected the rope while Amichai had his coffee and we continued on. Along the way we reached a pretty little waterfall with a rock arch. We had a look at the arch before bypassing the fall from the left. Soon after that we started walking along the right (South) bank of the wadi instead of continuing in the stream, until we saw the launching point for the highest waterfall approved for rappelling in Israel – 120 meters tall!

Spoiler alert! We didn’t rappel down the 120-meter fall.

We bypassed the big fall and thus saved ourselves a long, difficult and, to be honest, not very enjoyable rappel. At the same time, we gained a wonderful view of the entire valley and an exciting descent into it. We walked along the edge of the chasm, along a sheer cliff that reaches about 200 meters tall, and the magnificent, majestic Hatzatzon valley opened up for us.

Amichai gave us some safety instructions (“Concentrate, don’t walk with your camera/cell phone in your hand, the path is very narrow and right along the chasm”). We heeded his warnings, and a good thing too! The path was exactly as advertised. Not for the faint of heart! But the view was amazing.

We carefully traversed the cliff edge and all made it safely to a narrow, steep gulch that would take us down into the valley below. We put on our helmets there. The gulch is narrow, steep and the walls are kind of crumbly-looking. An ibex, a hyrax or even the wind could knock stones down on us.

The gulch starts out very steep, with rock ‘stairs’ that we climbed down carefully before reaching the next rappelling point. This rappel is about 30 meters long with lots of bumps and steps, so that from below it looks like you could climb down without rope, but why take the chance?

We continued down the gulch, clambering over rocks and boulders, sometimes helping one another down the difficult parts, all the while with our helmets on.

We finally reached the bottom, at the base of the big fall with the view of both descents before us: the huge 120-meter high waterfall towering above and the narrow gulch that we descended next to it. We stopped for a breath, took off our helmets and enjoyed the view before continuing down the valley.

We went on, following the path over boulders and around small waterfalls until we reached the next big fall. This was the tallest fall we would rappel on this trip, at about 60 meters tall, with the lower third of the descent negative. That means that you’re hanging by the rope with no contact to the rock. Your feet are too far from the rock face to touch it.

We each rappelled down, and discovered that there’s a very narrow crack at the top of the fall, next to where we descended, that you can only see from the bottom.

At the bottom of this fall is a perfect rest stop, so I made coffee for the group members as they reached the bottom. We had coffee and snacks, again. Seems that apart from Amichai who set up all the rappelling anchors and did most of the work, we were eating most of the time!

I made sure that Amichai had some coffee and something to eat before we collected ourselves and continued.

Not much further on we got to the next rappel. This must be the most interesting and beautiful fall that I know of, and it even has a name – the City of the Dwarves. You rappel down a 25-meter waterfall into an enclosed area surrounded on all sides by rock walls. The waterfall itself is made of rock shelves, like floors or balconies in a building, and the walls surrounding the enclosure have shelves and caves, like living apartments for dwarves. The only exit from the enclosure is under a large rock arch, like a gate, under which the water flows during floods.

I was one of the first down, along with Danny, and while we were waiting for the rest of the group to rappel a large male ibex came out of one of the small caves to the left of the gate, crossed over the rock bridge, gave us a disapproving look, and disappeared around the cliff edge to its right! It happened much too fast for me to aim my cell phone camera at it, so you’ll have to take my word for it! But Danny saw it too.

We enjoyed this unique spot for a bit before heading on. We carefully climbed down a small fall under the gate and continued towards the final rappel of the trip. Along the way I noticed that after many years and much hiking, my shoes came to the end of their life. The sole tore and started to part from the shoe. With no replacement, I kept on with them to the end of the trail.

Shortly after that we arrived at the last rappel. This is a narrow waterfall that slices into the valley. On the left of the fall are some large boulders with anchor points set in, and on the right is a convenient platform to watch the rappellers descend.

Amichai set up the anchor and one at a time we all descended the final fall safely. While we waited for each other to descend, we saw a family of ibex on the steep slope above the ravine. We called down to those that had already descended to put on helmets in case the ibex knocked some rocks down on them, and everyone who descended kept their helmets on until we set off from there.

When we all made it safely down we took off our harnesses, folded up the ropes for the last time, packed up our rappelling gear and hiked on towards our vehicles. Along the way we saw the ‘Donkey’s Path’ that we climbed oh so long ago, that morning. We climbed up the last ascent out of the valley to our cars, said our goodbyes, and headed home, after another great hike.

Special thanks to Amichai for a wonderful day!

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