And suddenly the long time expected turn of events came and I was going to Qatar for one month. So I wanted to use my last weekend for one of the long time planned trips in UAE we had, because when I would come back in June it would be too late for any outdoor stuff for summer heat.
We had basically two things we wanted to do. Climb 300m high Ainee wall in Wadi Bih or do UAE’s most famous hike Stairway to Heaven. Ainee wall is for two days because of its distance and because Milan wanted at least one day for learning with his new kite, 10 hour Stairway trek was a perfect choice.
“We leave today after office to Ras al Khaimah, camp there, Friday Stairway with camping afterwards and Saturday directly to the beach kiting. Who’s in?” I sent short email on Thursday morning. “I can’t leave UAE without doing this trip. I’m in!” responded Jaro, Milan got caught on Saturday kiting so we were three.
Stairway to heaven is a quite short but very steep hike to the top of deep wadi, where you in the uppermost portion use stairs made of stones on very exposed walls and ledges. It’s around 7km long, 1000m up and the book says 8-11 hours for going up and back the same way.
After a decent sleep at the beginning of the trek at 10am we made our first step into the wadi. Temperature was quite nice around 30 degrees so we full of strength were progressing fast following an obvious path through boulder fields and traversing around steep walls. After one hour we were at the confluence and started to walk straight up towards the start of the Stairway. We were not alone there, because we met an older English man trying his luck also. We quickly overtook him and went for the first Stairway around 300 altitude meters below the top.
We had a detailed route description, but somehow the system of ledges and stairways was so obvious, that we didn’t need it. True, it was steep, high, exposed and the Stairways made loose stones just put together seem to fall apart under every step, but somebody doing climbing wouldn’t even notice that it is something unusual. Contrary to many holiday hikers being tempted by the fame of this hike J
After 3 hours we were at the top!! Looking a bit disappointed from expecting something more challenging we decided, after small lunch, to do the whole roundtrip and return to the confluence from the opposite side of the wadi, rather than retracing our steps back using the Stairway. The guide was saying that, even when it doesn’t look like, it is much tougher choice distance wise and also route finding wise. But we didn’t care. “Look, we have 6 hours of sunlight and from the map it is something around 8 kilometers back to the confluence. I have all the waypoints in the GPS” I said, “And we have headlamps” added Milan and we marched. Only one who didn’t say much was Jaro suffering diarrhea from very morning. But we marched!
Route finding up to the village on other side of the valley was simple. We had some delays and we lost half an hour when taking wrong ridge, but we arrived at 4:30pm, so just enough time to be at the confluence before dark. But shortly after we started descending through huge steep boulder field those last 900m elevation meters, it got screwed up!!!
It was not especially hot that day but we finished already all our water. Descending on loose and sliding stones went slower than we expected, especially for Jaro. He doesn’t see well in the dark normally, but today he took as his only dioptric glasses sunglasses, so he was practically blind when it got a bit darker. And also he was starting to be really exhausted and dehydrated from diarrhea and having not enough water. And with a couple of dry waterfalls which we had to bypass around, we reached spot above the last waterfall when was completely dark.
“Follow the riverbed until you reach the 6 meter high waterfall. Then turn back and find the way how to bypass it to the left” I read from the guide. Easy to say, but harder to do, when you when you are in unknown area, in the middle of dry canyon with 10m high walls above you and staring down from the waterfall. We didn’t even have three headlamps, because I lost mine in Kenya and haven’t bought new one yet and Jaro had to shine directly under his feet to be able to make a single move. With increasing time we spent there, we were getting thirstier and it was slowly getting a bit scary J
We luckily found the only way around the waterfall, but it cost us time. “Uff…finally we are at the confluence. Now it is easy. We have already been here” relieved Milan and we started walking back on the same path we came. We had around 3 kilometers and 250 meter down to the car. The trail was visible, but we needed to walk slowly and even then we lost it couple of times. And with every step Jaro was getting into worse and worse shape. Completely dehydrated, he was stomach sick and dizzy. In one moment we had to stop because he started vomiting. Vomiting nothing!! Me and Milan we were very thirsty but still focused. The way back seemed endless. Much longer than we remembered it when walking up.
“Hey Milan!! Are you sure that this is a correct way” I shouted. “The trail is not very clear, but it looks like this might be it” he responded with no confidence. So we got lost again. Even when we got back to the last point where we were sure that we were standing on the trail, we couldn’t figure out where does it lead next. Milan tried to traverse further, but it was not the way. The way down seemed way to steep, leading nowhere and above us was just a vertical wall. And it was dark. And we haven’t had a drop of water for 5 hours. And it was still around 35 degrees. And it started to look quite scary. We all played with a thought of being stuck here for the rest of the night!!
Fortunately after more than an hour of going around in one place, Milan found a way down. “Guys…that’s it!! I found the trail” he shouted from below. And from then it was finally easy and we got safely and alive to the car at 11pm!!!
And that was it. HAPPY END J We drunk everything liquid…hot water from bottles, cold water from melted ice, Pepsi, lime juice, beer. Everybody drunk around 3 liters, fell down and slept.
Lesson learned? Maybe only that the mountains, no matter how easy they are, they look completely different in the night under only torch light and that 4 liters of water per person for whole day UAE trek in not enough. Next time we’ll be smarter.
What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger J
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