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From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
TKH
Over the next few days I hiked from Mt. Nebo to and through an area that is known as “Three Wadis”, Wadi Ma’in, Wadi Hidan and Wadi Mujib. All three wadis empty into the Dead Sea.
Along the way one sees orchards, mostly of olive trees, as well as fields with tomatoes, melons, pumpkins. The olive orchards sometimes were of the “gentleman farm” type, the houses pretty fancy and I don’t think that the owners would be dirtying their hands, whereas the produce farms were worked by hard-working Bedouins eking out a living from this harsh and unforgiving land.
All of the fields are watered from the streams in the three wadis or by water either pumped from wells or from basins that capture surface water runoff during the rainy season in January. Anything growing in October/November is growing thanks to irrigation and only as far as the hose will reach.

Within a couple of hours from Mt. Nebo one gets really close to the Dead Sea and one can look across it to Israel. This closeness of Israel also explains why the GPS is not working in Jordan when it is being jammed over Israel.

Early morning near my camp, looking out towards the Dead Sea

At the bottom of the slope I reached Wadi Ma’in. At the point where I crossed it is more or less undisturbed, but further downstream there are hot springs and tourist sites. Down by the shores of the Dead Sea it’s basically Waikiki.
Note the black basalt through which the stream has eaten its way.
I climbed through the upper cliff band there for about half a mile from the left end shown in the image to the right until I could climb down to the creek. Ever so slightly insane and, as I saw later from higher up on the other bank, unnecessary. There was a much easier way, but I did not see the entrance to it.

After crossing the stream and hiking up the other bank for a bit I got a view of the area upstream.
Notice the large array of solar panels that are used to drive the pumps that irrigate the fields and orchards.
The “trails” that you see in the beige triangle on the bottom right are goat and sheep paths. For the life of me I could not see what the animals were eating. Whatever they found was supplemented by oats and oat straw when the animals returned to their pens at day’s end

This is a view of Wadi Hidan, a wadi much more developed wadi than Wadi Ma’in. There was so much evidence of human settlement and animal husbandry without concomitant evidence of waster water treatment that I did not dare to filter the water in the stream.
The water is pumped either out of the stream or ground water from near the stream. Israel apparently also gives water to Jordan, presumably from the Jordan river. A local told me ”You can’t rely on it, though. Their politics are so crazy”.
Another source of water is water collected in ponds from surface runoff. You see all these “folds” in the terrain. A farmer would build a dam near his fields and collect the water that comes down these folds as shown in the next image.

A pond holding water from surface water runoff or a buffer tank for pumped ground water.
Among the countries of the world with severe shortage of water Jordan ranks number 4.

As I was hiking I noticed that large stretches of the country had been plowed by bulldozer and I could not figure out the reason. Apparently this is done to slow down water running off the surface, allowing it to sink in. Locals told me all of this would be green in Spring and provide feed for the sheep and goats. Looking at the ratio of rock to soil in the image, color me skeptical.

The banks and hillsides above the creeks in the three wadis are made up of limestone, Rillenstein (German for “grooved rock”) to be precise. This stuff is very rough on the soles of one’s shoes and the skin on one’s legs should one take a spill.
Occasionally one stumbles on evidence for the marine origin of the rock: shells imbedded in the rock.

The “Three Wadi’ area requires that you get down a slope like this, cross the stream and then climb another slope like this to the top of a mesa. You cross the mesa and then go down the next slope. It’s extremely steep, covered in loose rock and then you have to watch out so that you do not get cliffed out by the cliff bands that you can clearly see from the other side of the valley, but not necessarily as clearly from above as you hike. I hike a lot in the Sierra, so I am used to it and reasonably good at it, but it can be tough.

A last image from the Wadi Hidan area showing how the wadi winds its way to the Dead Sea. At the bottom of Wadi Hidan one is actually below normal null, i.e. sea level.
Ronno2018
Fantastic post. What an adventure. On my one visit to Israel I looked across to Jordan and wondered what it was like.
oldster
Hats off to you — that is some tough trekking. And did you say you did your Army training 50 years ago? If so, you are legitimately one tough old bastard. Which I say with the greatest respect.
Also — 3 liters of water per day? That seems pretty light in a dry climate like that. When sweating all day, a full gallon would not be unreasonable. Heavy, of course. But you must know your own needs pretty well to budget that tightly.
Snarlymon
Amazing pictures . They make southern Utah seem lush .
Winter Wren
Great photos – what an adventure!
Princess
What a trip!
Meyerman
Reminds me of the terrain around Death Valley.
stinger
I imagine coming up over a rise, seeing this in the near distance, and being told, “This is the promised land.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME, GOD? I’d turn around and go back!
But the photos and descriptions are fascinating!
Trivia Man
Thanks for sharing. Rugged hiking is not accessible to most people and couldn’t handle large crowds in any case, but what a rewarding trip. Looks like The path is usually easy! IF you know the way.
MCat
I just can’t imagine hiking in terrain like that. You are really strong. Good on you!!!
cope
Great pictures and story, thank you.
The shell fossils look to be of the Turritella genus if anybody cares. Also, to add to oldster’s observation about you and quote Cicero Grimes doing it, “Mister, you’ve got a lot of hard bark on you walkin’ down here like this.”
Thanks again. Having lived in Saudi Arabia in the ’50s, I still have a strong affection for the deserts of the Middle East.
Gloria DryGarden
Your hiking there is amazingly. I am wondering what the land ‘feels ‘ like. Was it hard walking on that gravely rock? I too thought 3 liters a day was light, but I seem to really need extra water in the desert; I have to salt it so it “sticks” and hydrates me better.
What were the daytime and nighttime temps in October, if that’s when you were there?
im guessing all that gravel on top helps with green growth; it makes an erosion preventer, plus a mulch, shading the ground and keeping the water from evaporating as quickly.
it’s really a treat to see photos of a place I may never go. Thank you
TKH
@oldster: In the stretch covered by today’s installment there was a water source every day and I could also ask at Bedouin settlements for water. I could therefore drink more than 3L/day. That limit applies mostly farther South where the sources are father apart and there are no settlements. And it is not that I would not like more water, it is just the limit of what I can schlepp if I need to carry for three days. Also, I try to drink about a liter at a water source so that I am good for the next few hours.
Lastly, when you carry water you can literally feel your load getting lighter during the day. When you carry, say, seven days’ worth of food, on the other hand, it takes much longer until you notice that the load is getting more reasonable.
TKH
@Gloria DryGarden: walking in terrain like this is all about micro-orienteering, I.e. deciding where you want to be in 30-50 ft and getting there by exploiting small ledges and avoiding stretches of ankle breakers (fields of grapefruit size rocks) and of ball bearings (fields of tiny rocks on a hard surface that make your shoes slide before they grip, if they do). It can be mentally quite taxing if this goes on for hours at a stretch, but if you hike as much as I do the process runs in the background of your mind.
Temps at noon in October in the mid-eighties, fifties to sixties at night. In December nights got down to near freezing and day-time temps in the mid-sixties.
Good point thinking of the rocks as mulch. Whatever grows there is certainly tough enough to push past the rocks when it germinates.
BigJimSlade
@TKH: Regarding walking on rocks, I’m reminded of driving east of Amman. There’s a tremendous broken basalt plain. I thought while driving through (on the main paved road), I hope they never walked camels through here. Seemed like it would rip feet (or shoes) to shreds after a while. Googling it, I think it’s a section of Harrat al-Sham.
TKH
@BigJimSlade: From what I saw in Sinai and Jordan, the treatment of smaller animals, up to donkey size, say, does not live up to BJ standards. With the camels they are way more circumspect because a) camels are expensive and b) a camel can kill a man.
In both Sinai and Jordan I hiked on camel trails through basalt fields. These trails have been used for such a long time that the really rough rocks have been kicked aside by the animals over time. You see these trails from far away as a much lighter line going through the lava fields. When you walk them they are slightly wider than a normal single-track hiking trail and very convenient to walk on in comparison to the terrain just 10 feet to either side. This is probably a result of a few hundred years of use.
You see something similar in the mountain West in the US where there are cattle trails that converge on water sources. The cattle don’t like to step on rocks (I guess they could get stuck in the hooves), so they follow these trails that have been cleared of rocks by repeat use and kicking aside the rocks, in a happenstance kind of way. I am not implying trail building as a deliberate bovine activity.
BigJimSlade
@TKH: Thanks for the response!
I couldn’t make out any paths while driving through… I think we were headed here on a day trip. I recall some ruins near the (!!!)water, but can’t make them out on google maps. This is also where we discovered the vine of sodom. It was weird to see a squash growing out there. (My first wife was in the foreign service for a little while, so we got around Jordan quite a bit while stationed there.)