Night Hike

 

On a typically sweltering Israeli Friday afternoon my boss Valerie asked me if I'd like to go on a night hike with her and her friends. I immediately said "sure! When ?" She said they would be leaving later that night. I wasn't exactly sure what she meant by a night hike, but it sounded intriguing.

        I had been working on a kibbutz as a volunteer for a few months and was eager to have a real "Israeli experience." I had been on a few touristy hikes, and found them interesting, yet I always sensed a sugarcoating on the railings. As tourists we are kept on the trodden path and told sweet cultural anecdotes to satisfy our travelers' appetite. I wanted more. Often, I would find myself fantasizing about jumping over the railings and running straight into the restricted areas. I saw this invitation as my chance to turn fantasy into reality.

        I was given a few more details on the car ride that night. The plan was to go on a hike during the night in the Negev desert. We would start the hike at Ben Gurion's grave site and then make our way to the top of an apparently small mountain peak to watch the sunrise and then trek on to a natural oasis. The reason we were going on the hike at night was because on a clear night when the moon shines on the white sand it creates a light of its own. Natural light without sunlight; apparently a must see. "Okay, that sounds like a cool way to spend a Friday night" I thought to myself. Uphill is not my forte but since I had been doing a lot of walking, and my arm muscles were nice and strong from working in the stables all spring, I thought I could easily mange a small mountain.

        When we got to the starting point I began to realize what I was in for. There were four men and four women not including myself on the trip. The men had all been in the army together. At one point they hiked 75 miles in less then a day. I noticed their sinewy leg muscles and began to feel a bit intimidated. I reminded myself that what I wanted a "real Israeli experience", and it seemed I would be getting exactly what I wished for.

        We started the hike at midnight. I found myself walking on a path that was no less then one foot wide and had at least 100 foot drops on either side. This was nothing like the touristy hikes that I had been on. Suddenly those sugarcoated railings didn’t seem so confining. My heart was pounding and the bottoms of my feet were tingling as they always do when I'm looking down from a great height. I was totally and completely terrified. It didn't help that one of the guys yelled that this was "the easy part". At that moment I became convinced that these were not Israelis, but were in fact mountain goat people.

          Once we arrived at the canyon my heartbeat returned to a normal rate. I started to evaluate my situation. I felt as if I was in bit over my head. My feet were hurting a little bit as I was wearing a pair of hiking boots I'd only worn once before, I was feeling tired, and I had a new found fear of heights. I couldn't just sit in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night, by myself. There was no way I would make it back up to the cars. I considered all this and realized the cold hard fact that I had no choice other than to continue on. "Fine" I though. "If I'm really going to do this, no whining, just move forward." And that's exactly what I did.

         

          Now that I had accepted my reality, I took a moment to look at my surroundings. The desert was breath taking. It was cloudy that night so it was dark most of the time, but every once and awhile the moon would shine and the expanse of the desert glowed an eerie white. Everyone else was disappointed it was cloudy. I was secretly happy. I knew that if I could have fully seen where I was on the way down to the canyon I might have reverted to 'little child clinging to a surface' mode. I listened to the sounds of the people around me laughing and talking. I had no idea what they were talking about as it was spoken in the fastest Hebrew I'd ever heard, but it nonetheless filled me with a sense of belonging. Just as I was beginning to feel at ease, if not a bit confident, we reached the mountain base of the “small” mountain.

         The small mountain was not small at all. Being a prairie girl from Canada, my idea of a small mountain was seriously skewed. “Don’t think about it too much. You can do it.” I reassured myself. The ascent was mostly on a one foot wide path with sharp jagged edges and sheer drops. My only comfort was the mountain side, that I clung to the whole way up. I managed to time my breathing, and concentrate on the motions of climbing. After an hour and a half of straight climbing, we made it to the peak just in time for sunrise. I was worried that the rest of the people on the hike would be annoyed with me for being slow, but when I climbed up over the edge they all started clapping. My friend Valerie said “Kola Kavode Sarah” which means “More power to you.” I smiled and looked over to see the first few rays of sun peeking over the mountain. We had made it just in time for the show.

        One cannot help but feel humbled while staring out into the vastness of this ancient dried up ocean. The white sand and smooth mountain curves in contrast to the sharp peaks make an ideal canvas on which the morning sun paints her daily peach, pink, and orange masterpiece. The mountains seem to take on different shapes and personalities in this light. It's a similar experience to staring up at clouds. They are forever changing, enticing ones imagination to come out and play. I closed my eyes. Silence…a rarity in this day and age. The desert has a silence so pure and so rich that it throbs. Even if only for a few moments, taking in all that the desert has to offer makes ones problems seem small and insignificant.

        The next stop in the trip was at a natural oasis. It took us about an hour to get there, and even though it was only 7am, I felt the power of the desert sun. What a relief it was to walk around a bend to find a pool of water with beautiful green plants growing on the side of a cliff. Water dripped off the plants and landed into the dark cool pool. The drip drip sound of the water reverberated throughout my soul. I swam, had breakfast and basked in the glory of it all. At 9 a.m. we started the walk back. I must have hit a second or third wind by that point, or I was just completely delirious, but the 2 hour walk back only felt like 20 minutes. When I finally got back to the Kibbutz I fell into my bed face first and had one the best sleeps of my life.

          When I woke up, my muscles were stiff in a way I didn't know was possible, but I hardly noticed. I felt exhilarated. The air tasted different; it was fresher. The sky was a vibrant blue, and the grass a potent green.  I sat under a tree and thought about how life can be such a cosmic joke. We can spend all this time yearning for something and when we can get exactly what we wanted we find ourselves terrified. I have had this experience more then once in my life, and have not always had the “chutzpa” or “balls” to face my challenge. I have let fear and anxiety pull me back into submission. This time I pushed my self to embrace what was on the other side of fear and anxiety. I jumped over the sugarcoated railing and was met by mountain goat people.

Author's Note

Any tips on spelling and or grammer are more then welcomed. I become blind to some errors after hours on the computer. Thanks!

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

In the sixth paragraph "I was felt as if I were..." needs a little cleaning up there.

"Now that I had accepted my reality..." need to put a comma after "reality"

A terrific read, Sarah! Your writing is very compitent. A few missing commas, (I didn't pick them all out) but overall, a job very well done. Thanks for sharing it. Sam