It’s Passover here in Israel, and that means that during the week-long holiday, pretty much everyone in Israel is going out to explore Israel and travel wherever they can.
And so did I with a group of friends. We took a long (too long) drive to the Dead Sea area to the Mishmar Stream track.
I didn’t plan the trip, I just tagged along at the last minute, so I was pretty surprised to learn that this track is located just minutes from where I was three weeks ago when I was on a Dead Sea Night & Sunrise photo workshop.
I don’t really know what my friend thought when he planned this trip, but it is considered a fairly hard track and is meant for the more advanced trackers since the difficulty level is for Experts. So it was no big surprise that pretty much everyone decided to quit and turn back at the halfway point.
All but one 😉
I saw a peak that I can reach and will probably have some great views, so before the others had the chance to tell me to turn back, I just kept going for it (slide to the 2nd image to see the peak I’m talking about about about).
As you can probably see from the image above, I had quite a climb ahead of me, and here are some of the images I managed to take during that climb:
The sky was clear with no clouds wasn’t beneficial as clouds always add some extra flair to the images, and I didn’t really feel “excited” about any of the images I took, and I guess that none of them will make it into my portfolio.
I guess you can’t win them all 🙂
The Viewpoint
The highlight of this track was the viewpoint which is located just over half the track (point number 7 on this map). It wasn’t a straightforward climb, but it is well worth it since the view is pretty awesome. It’s a little hill that is surrounded by all these “tabletop” like mountains.
You can see the Dead Sea and Jordan in the distance.
I took a little 360 video with my GoPro, but after seeing the footage, you can’t really see how high this place is and how big of a drop you have in every direction. Basically, it seems less “awesome” in the video than in reality, so you better get there yourself to get the full experience 🙂
Lessons Learned
Here are some of the lessons I learned from this daily trip that I will surely implement for the next one:
- Get a hat. The sun can be brutal, especially here in Israel and a hat would work much better than the half part of my pants that I put on my head.
- Wear sunscreen. Baz Luhrmann said it the best 🙂
- Don’t leave home without toilet paper in your bag. Butt wipes are also very recommended 😉
- Even if you don’t plan the trip, do some fu**ing research so you know what to expect.
See you at the next one.