Well, after planning to get out to Snake Gorge since last summer, it finally happened. May is not too hot, the water is still clean(ish) in the gorge, and nor is it too cold. In fact, even though it was 40-something degrees outside, the gorge was about 10° cooler.
So the fun kicked off on Thursday. I had planned to skip off work early, but a 4:30 meeting kyboshed that idea. Not that it mattered as Zoi got caught in traffic on the way back from Abu Dhabi, so we didn't leave finally until almost 9:00pm. Hit the border in Al Ain at midnight, got a little lost and drove straight past the turn off at Al Hamra, and finally made camp at about 4:00am.
Friday morning was pretty rough, but once we'd eaten a bit, loaded up on coffee (even I had coffee!) we were ok, and once we saw the gorge for the first time, all tiredness evaporated. Snake Gorge, (or Canyon, depending who you talk to), is a long, deep and narrow cut through some of the most spectacular mountains in the world. There is water running at the bottom year round, and this weekend the water was clean (mostly), cool and refreshing. And the gorge was simply spectacular.
The day involved a combination of jumping into water, abseiling, scrambling over rocks, helping each other up rock faces and generally having a blast. In fact, in terms of all time greatest sporting days in my life, this is up there with getting virgin tracks through sweet, sweet powder on the Volcano run at Las Lenas in 2004 (which, before I got married, I had listed as the happiest day of my life!)
Snake Gorge was that good.
see http://picasaweb.google.com/njlander and follow the link.
