4 seasons, 12 months. You would think that each season, with its appropriate climate will get the same amount of time.
But no. people are mean – but nature is wicked. Luckily, Israel is not being too cruelled by mother earth. In our tiny oasis, summer longs six months, spring and autumn also feel like summer (and each longs about a month and a half), and winter, at his best – rains our country (most of the time hypothetically rains) for three months. And even in the winter, every week we have a hot sunny day. In the three wintery months, it’s hard to hike.
I give you – Hiking in the winter, the Do It Yourself guide:
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Always check the weather. It’s basic, but sometimes you get so enthusiastic with planning the perfect field weekend, that you forget to check if it’s gonna rain. And then, in the middle of the night, the people who put their sleeping bags by the fire jump into your tent, and you have a funny story to tell between one sneeze to another.
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Be in touch with the Nature and Park Authority that is responsible of the area you hike in. That’s important in every season, but in the winter there are more risks. If you sleep, get swift by a flood, get stuck in the mud. Let’s make it a fun and safe hike – and not an heroic story about how once again you defeated death (yes, I’m trying to scare you. To many stupid friends who like to take the unmarked-rocky-very high-with a lot of danger signs way)
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“Hiking in the winter, the Do It Yourself guide” (Photo: Karl Weatherly/Getty Images)
Know where you’re going. Take a map; even print it from the internet. But don’t just wonder around – it gets dark way too early.
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Make sure your tent is water proof and your sleeping bag too. That is what saved me from being a popsicle.
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Try not to plan a rocky road. Slippery rocks will make you fall. Don’t push destiny, it will push you.
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Do not slip in valleys.(!!!) If you’ve done all of the above, you’ll know when to hike when it’s less rainy, but don’t put all of your trust in the weather forecast. If you’re in a valley, and it starts to rain, you can get really stuck. So just don’t.
The streams are flowing; the desert is blooming(ish). Israel has even more magic in the winter, and it’s finally not that hot outside.