The 3rd in the munro series is Jebel Hatta. I think it is the most isolated mountain in the UAE; you can drive to the top of Jebel Yabir and Jebel Hafeet. We suicidally attempted this mountain in August last year from the south, however after asking around for some reason no one was keen for a second attempt from the convention north-west. And so it was one man against one mountain...

The walk kinda started the night before when sharing a bottle of bombay sapphire with K1... Consequently the next morning my start was a wee bit late. Nevermind I thought this mountain conquered us once, this time it is her turn to be conquered, the worst it would mean is a bit of walking in the dark. After a quick stop at the service station I took on lots of fluids and some best cashew nuts, I was going along the Dubai-Hatta road and through the check point into Oman. The car was topped up at the cheap shell and with a sharp turn right just before the second border check point I was close to the wadi I know very well now...

The bumping along the wadi was finally cut short by an impassable cataract in the wadi. It was 11am and thrusting two masafi 1.5 ltr bottles of water into my bag together with the trusty cashews I hit the wadi. Almost immediately the star of the main picture above darted across my path. We had a brillant photo shoot before he went on his little way. The weather had been unseasonally cool for weeks but on that day it was cranked up a few degrees, not too bad but just a few degrees. 5kms later after going through many dried up pools I hit the first wet one. As I approach a startled snake darted into the water and to safety on the far side. Now I had a few electronic gizmos on me and there was a snake in the pool so the only option was to climb out of the wadi walk along then drop back in further up. The climb up was on rather loose but still compacted moraine. Every hold had to be kicked to remove the loose stuff and gingerly I made my way out of the wadi. An equally ginger drop back down and I was on my way again.

Two more pools were passed before the real climbing started. This climbing was very much easier in the sense that the climb was just bare rock so there was no concern about the placement of every step unlike the rocky bottomed wadi. At this point I had to make a decision as I had not done the bulk of the climb and my water was disproportionately depleted from the walk in the midday sun within the claustrophobic wadi. “No” I thought “I must defeat this mountain”. I hiked up and up beside two more snakes, countless lizards and flora until the col was reached giving the first view of the summit with it’s military communication equipment. I assume it was military because my etisalat phone did not have signal for the whole of the hike.

Beyond the col was the final push to the top. This last section was quite a scramble up the scree slope but I finally emerged at the top by 16.30. On the top together with all the anteni and dishes were two buildings full of running equipment. I was half hoping to score some water off one of the operator/guard having only one litre left out of three but alas after many times saying “As-salamu alaykum” there was no reply; I suppose it was Friday. Each of the doors to the two buildings were only kept closed by large breeze blocks.  So as no one was there and I was in bad need of water I moved each of the breeze blocks and had a look around inside. The only water I found was a 500ml Al Ain bottle. I swiftly drank half and got on my way back down the mountain to get a far as I could before dark.

Unsurprisingly initially going down the mountain proved to be much quicker that coming up! However as the sun went down and I was trying to conserve water my pace slowed. I made it to pool 3 just as it was becoming dark. Soon afterwards with no moon it become pretty damm dark. Periodically I began to pass through areas of long grass and large bushes which did not phase me in the light of the day but were now quite intimidating. Each time I approached one of these physical and psychological barriers I picked up some rocks and threw them with some force along the route I was about to take. This seemed to be working swimmingly then as I was walking there were some innocuous bushes to my right on the edge of wadi which I barely noticed. Just as I passed I was looking down the wadi at my next step I heard... HISS! I jumped, shouted “Aaaarrraahh!” and ran 20m further down the wadi. At this point I checked my underwear, still clean, and ran through what had just happened in my head. I came to three conclusions: 1. That was a bl**dy close one, 2. The pitch of my shout was of a pitch that meant I was a man and not girl, 3. In the heat of the day snakes probably relax and right now they are probably all out to play. With particularly point 3 in mind I continued down the wadi with a handful of rocks...

Over pool 2 with approximately;150ml of water left. I walked another 500m then suddenly, about two metres directly in front “HISS”! “F*** me!”. I leapt back what felt like 3m but I suspect was only a metre. There was still no moon so I saw a faint glint of something as it sloped off. Now this is where the ILPH gets in on the action despite her absence. On Jebel Faraj the other week she had maintained the torch principal of walking in the dark, where as I was firmly in the night vision camp. I switched camps there and then and the iPhone with supplementary battery pack came out right away!

I continued walking with fatigue on one shoulder and lack of water on the other. With the torch my world became a 3m metre square patch in front, however on the bright (no pun intended) side this allowed me to speed up. Even through it was dark the air was still warm and heavy. Just right before pool 1 I finished off the last of the water. At this point another two decisions had to be taken. The first was whether to plunge myself into the pool to cool down and save the scramble out and back into the wadi. This has pros of cool myself down, saving time, and saving the sweat filled effort of getting out and back into the wadi. The cons were saying hello to the snake I saw earlier on in the day and my bag falling short into the pool. The second decision was whether to drink the wadi water from the only running water I saw that day. The pros we getting some badly need fluids and the cons was catching something unspeakable. So with a bit more resolve I collected some water, making a deal with myself that if I began to see things or start falling over I would start swigging, and started to hike out of the wadi, I was not going to say hello to Sally the snake!

Back into the wadi it was a straight walk back to the car and large bottle of Masafi. After 5km of grinding hiking, with my tongue feeling like a swollen foreign object as my mouth was so dry, I staggered back to the car. The feeling was more relief that triumph.

I conquered Jebel Hatta that day but the old girl taught me a few lessons...