Nachal Gishron - January 29th 2010

We gathered at the Eilat Field School on Thursday night.

After breakfast on Friday morning, we got on the bus for the short ride to the Nachal Gishron, trail head.
We picked up Dan, our guide for the day, at the back entrance to Eilat.
The cycling leg of the Israman Eilat triathlon was going through the intersection, so we had to wait until most of the competitors came through.

We drove up to the trail head where we go off the bus and started walking.
The trail went mostly downward. On the way we past and old leopard trap, an engraving in Arabic, the remains of a camel that was eaten by a Hyena, and then some more engravings on the walls of the canyon.

Along the trail we saw puddles, wet spots and mud that remained form the rain and floods two weeks ago.

Towards the end of the trail, we crawled through a very narrow passage, The Tzafra passage. We all managed to come through, some with more difficulty that others.

We that started to climb, at first through a lovely sand stone canyon, and then on an exposed trail.

Towards the end of the ascent, we saw a group of male Ibex, who thoughtfully posed for our pictures.

We got back to the bus after one final descent.
While waiting for the last people in our group, we saw the Israman competitors finishing their run.

On Friday night, we walked over to the Orchid hotel for Shabbat dinner.

Thanks to Judith for organizing a great weekend, Alan for the dinner at the hotel and Dan, our guide.

Pictures:
Gadi's Picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/gadi.ben.avi/20100129MosaicNachalGishron
Haya's Pictures:
John's Pictures