Gotta love Pictures

Just some photos to give you stuff to look at. I had an awesome weekend hiking in the Golan Heights along the Black Canyon trail. The hike is in a closed national park which can only be accessed through specific guides. Because we were a larger group, about 23 people, we had three guides, all of whom were totally awesome. I believe it needs to be said that Israelis have a great, though extremely dry, sense of humor. Most of the jokes we hesitated at as they were in referrence to possible death or injury, but all the same, once we realized it was a joke, it was funny.

Our JUC awesomeness coming out as we emerge from the canyon. I believe this was the "strong man" pose, but that wasn't well communicated and the guide who took the picture never told us before he snapped the photo.

 

I finally got to see an Israeli sunrise! We left school at 4 AM and arrived in the Golan Heights by 7:15 ready to hike.

 

Our guide's first words: "Welcome to the Black Canyon. This is the most difficult hike in all Israel. It is also the most fun." The next words he addressed to the group: "Don't lose your equipment when you jump down the waterfall. It's very expensive." Heck - I'm being told to jump down a waterfall! I'm not that worried about the equipment. While we waited for everyone in our group to catch up, several people decided to reclimb the canyon walls and jump in.

The next waterfall was a little more difficult and we repelled down it instead. Repelling is awesome. It is also one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. The rope was several feet too short, but no big deal: we fell into a river. I've never been so happy to fall into a river.

In total we hiked/repelled/jumped three waterfalls, went swimming a few times, and got lost a few times (not that lost - while they unhooked the repelling ropes, the guides told us to follow the "path" till we got to a green sign. When you are in a canyon, there's kind of only one direction to go: forward. We just went forward in an upward direction which made things a little harder until the guides caught up.) After we reached the green sign, the guides led us up a 400+ staired hill and over an extremely large and rocky field to the parking lot. By the way, in case you were wondering, Israel has a lot of rocks. I can't imagine how many years it would take to clear an acre of land of rocks in order to grow something on it. It's no wonder that land is a prized inheritance here - their ancestors worked years to clear it for them! Had we continued in the canyon we would have eventually come out into the Sea of Galilee, about another day's hike from where we were. Instead of hiking it, I took a picture as we drove past. It was described to me as a giant pond or a very small lake but it seemed pretty large from the road. We will get the opportunity for a closer look on a field study - I believe this coming Saturday.