Hiking in Wadi Ma'in

A few months back, right after I arrived in the Middle East, I had the opportunity to go on a hiking trip out by the Dead Sea. I would have written about it sooner, but for various reasons I held off. I decided that the time was right to share about this amazing place.

A large group of us loaded up into two vans to make the trip out to the Dead Sea. The drive was an interesting view of the countryside which surrounds the Dead Sea. Also, considering that the Dead Sea's "shores are the lowest point on the surface of the Earth on dry land" there was much yawning to equalize the pressure behind our ears.

We finally arrived at our destination, a valley named Wadi Ma'in, and unloaded. Our plan was to hike from the entrance of the canyon through the river, all the way to the hot springs about 5 km back.

We entered the wadi and the first thing I noticed was that this hike was going to be much wetter than I anticipated. I was told beforehand that I would get soaked and the majority of the hike would be in and through a river that ran down the wadi so I expected to get wet. I guess I was just overwhelmed by the amount of water.


The above picture shows me standing in the stream right near the beginning. You can see that my shorts are already wet above the knee as we had already waded through water near two feet deep.


I'd say that about 35 -45% of the hike consisted of us hiking through canyons like the one above. There was always water running and if we weren't slushing through it with, we were at least walking right next to the water.


The other 65 - 55% of the hike allowed us to be fully immersed in water. Several points required us to swim upstream. While other spots simply afforded us the opportunity to push our way against a strong current that was up to five feet deep (see the picture above). It was amazing! I had never hiked through water like this before, and I must say it was pretty outstanding.


The surrounding landscape was incredible. It was so nice to see so much green and lush vegetation. The contrast between the high canyon walls, the blue sky, the green plants, and the rushing water was really stunning. It was almost surreal in its beauty. I almost felt like I was in a movie.


Just to reassure you though, this was a hike and not a swim. The picture above shows the amount of rock climbing we had to do. Granted, that was the most difficult of the rock climbs, but it shows that we didn't just wade through water the entire time. I have been rock climbing before, but never soaking wet. That new factor made it quite challenging.


There were some pretty drastic elevation changes, but they gave us some good photos. The above picture shows me triumphantly standing on top of a particularly interesting climb.


And since there was water involved in these drastic changes in elevation, naturally there were waterfalls. They were absolutely beautiful. Like I said earlier, the scenery was quite fantastical.

We had a lot of fun playing in the many available waterfalls.

This last photo shows the hot springs pool that we hiked back to. The wadi and river continued much further back, but we stopped here. This gigantic waterfall was exceptionally breathtaking.

This trip is hard for me to put into words. Much more happened, but I truly wanted to share about the amazing beauty of the hike. I am looking forward to other hikes in the coming months once it warms up again. (PS - All the pictures in this entry were taken by my friend Kacy who was gracious enough to give me copies.)